


a leap off of the precipice

by Neffectual



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, BDSM taken too far, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood and Injury, Body Worship, Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Butt Plugs, Caning, Canon Typical Ableism, Caring, Cunnilingus, F/M, Felching, Gentle Sex, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia is Bad at Feelings, Handcuffs, Heavy BDSM, Human Furniture, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Infidelity, Internalised ableism, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg Friendship, M/M, Mild Blood, No Safeword, Overstimulation, Overwhelmed Geralt, Panic Attacks, Polyamory Negotiations, Praise Kink, Rimming, Rope Bondage, Rough Sex, Safewords, Sharing, Soft Dom Jaskier, Spanking, Sub Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Subdrop, Subspace, Top Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Trust, Whipping, canon-typical depictions of sex work, poor communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:48:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22295092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: Geralt has never had the chance to choose before, and now it's being given, he doesn't know how. How to say no to one, and yes to another, rather than yes to both.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 259
Kudos: 1038
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection, Polyamorous Relationships For the Win, Sub!Geralt





	1. whatever the cost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thirteendaze (Thirteenthesiac)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thirteenthesiac/gifts).



> Title from The Precipice, by The Classic Crime
> 
> Timeline's a bit murky on this, as Geralt's not travelling with Jaskier, and the thing with Yen is supposed to be over, but he's also not travelling with Ciri! Just go with it, it'll be easier on all of us.

Geralt often finds winter almost interminable; cold, hard ground to sleep on, the way frost rimes at his temples, how every old ache and wound hurts like new again. So when he arrives in a town to find Jaskier there, ensconced in an inn, wearing good furs, and more importantly, with a room, it’s a relief. He doesn’t often give in to luxury and softness, but he’s also tired of his piss freezing where it splashes on the ground. He’ll even put up with Jaskier if it means he can sleep in a real bed, have a hot bath, and not wake frozen to his bedroll again.

Jaskier, for his part, welcomes Geralt expansively, plying him with wine and bacon and lute-callused hands smoothing oil over his skin. The bard knows where all of Geralt’s worst aches and pains are, and the hands that can spin a clever tune are also skilled at drawing out knots of muscle. Geralt sits in a steaming bath and lets Jaskier soothe the worst of the winter out of his cold bones, leaving him soft and sleepy and smelling of chamomile.

He doesn’t protest as the bard manhandles him towards the bed – the only bed, he notes, muzzily, but can’t begin to say why that would matter – and lays him down upon it. The blankets are cheap and scratchy, but compared to how Geralt’s been sleeping, they feel like he’s pillowed on the thighs of the type of whores a Witcher’s coin can rarely buy. He has no fear of being helpless like this with Jaskier, nor any self-consciousness about being naked; those, too, have been washed away with the bath.

“ – and you don’t look like you’ve been eating properly, we need to fatten you up,” Jaskier’s voice comes back into focus, though it still feels far away and too distant to silence. “Honestly, Geralt, if you aren’t going to look after yourself, at least let someone do it for you.”

For once, Geralt doesn’t see the harm in taking someone else’s advice.

Given the way the town is situated, tucked snugly between two mountain ranges, keeping the temperature a little higher than the peaks around it, Geralt shouldn’t have been surprised when he walks past the brothel – no harm in looking, even if he doesn’t have the coin – and smells a familiar scent drifting from the door. Lilac. Gooseberries.

“Hmm,” he murmurs, but then there’s the laugh, cruel and proud, and he knows it’s her, not just another who wears her scent, and can’t help himself. His feet carry him inside as if bewitched, but she’s never needed magic to entice him.

He’s unsurprised to find Yennefer in the middle of an orgy. Other people’s sex being at her control is her own private amusement, for all the times she has had hers used against her, for all the times that being beautiful has been confused with being heartless, or worse, useless. It didn’t surprise him to learn that she had been born with a twisted spine, that she knew cruelty long before she ever knew kindness, that she had been treated as if she was worth less than a pig. She still struck more sharply than those who had walked through life with ease from the start of their days, even now, even after sixty years.

“Witcher,” she says, with faint amusement, as if she hadn’t known he was in town. “Come to seek one of my girls?” She gestures to the women around the room, but Geralt only has eyes for one woman, has only had eyes for one woman for many years now.

“No,” he says, keeping taciturn. She can read it all in his mind, should she choose. He doesn’t have to be an open book, but he is, to her. He always is.

“No, they’d be too pedestrian for you, wouldn’t they?” The words trip on her tongue, that clever way she’d be taught to speak all those years ago. “So you come for me?”

He raises an eyebrow the slightest bit at the clear double entendre, and shivers at her delighted laughter. With a click of her fingers, the room is empty but for the two of them, and he steps into her arms like he never left them.

Her hands are greedy, grasping as they tear his clothes from his body, revealing him to her. For his part, his hands are up her skirts, feeling bare skin there, the soft, flawless skin that is nothing like his own, though she, too, has suffered many cruelties. Hers are writ below the skin, not on it.

She pulls him over her, onto the bed he could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago, but no matter. As he presses into her wet heat, her nails claw at his back, her mouth at his throat, marking him, adding another story to the tapestry of his skin, and he growls against her, setting a punishing pace he knows they can both take. She’s no more delicate than he is, when it comes down to it, and the way she drums her heels on his back, urging him onward tells him that this isn’t too much for her.

Her body yields to him, over and over, her tolerance for both pain and pleasure a perfect match for Witcher stamina, even as she flips them over and rides him to her peak, eyes closed as her nails leave bloody trails down his chest and he howls his pleasure like an animal.

When he finds his senses again, she is gone, and he rises on unsteady legs, dresses, and stumbles back to the inn.

“And he – oh, I do apologise, kind folk, it seems my companion here is a little worse for wear,” Geralt hears the music stop, before Jaskier is at his side, one arm supporting him. “Goodness, Geralt, I leave you alone for five minutes and you get yourself into trouble again. What was it this time? Angry farmer’s daughter? Baker’s wife? Jeweller's son?”

“Fuck,” Geralt breathes out, as he takes the stairs. He hadn’t realised he was so well-used.

“Yes, you’re right, how could I possibly suggest you might be off having a good time when you were probably fighting the rats in the stables for grain?” Jaskier says, archly, and Geralt feels his mouth quirk, despite himself. “Ah ha! I knew you liked my jokes! So, what did I miss? A werewolf? Another striga? A violent princess, bent on revenge?”

“Hmm,” Geralt gives him, grunting as he takes the final step.

“You’ll be the death of me, Geralt, one day I’ll have more grey hair than you,” Jaskier grins, even as he manoeuvres Geralt to sit on a narrow bench against the wall. Geralt winces, and Jaskier hums a little apology. “Let me get the water brought up and we’ll defile that poor bath with whatever you’ve got yourself into this time. Sit there, and don’t fall over, I won’t get you up off the floor by myself, and Gwyn the barmaid’s a stout lass, but I’m sure you don’t want her hands all over you, do you?”

Geralt lets the chatter wash over him, leaning against the wall for support, and wonders – not for the first time – if Yen’s touch is like the sting of a manticore. If he’s poisoned by her hands on his skin, his cock inside her. Idly, he lets Jaskier help him out of his clothes and into the bath, only tuning back in at the gasp of horror from the bard.

“I rubbed salve on you not two days ago, and you go and get yourself torn open yet again?” Jaskier’s saying, and then Geralt’s wincing as the bard’s fingers touch the wounds Yen’s fingers have left on him. “Did you find some other tavern to brawl in, or were you simply lucky enough to catch some fell beast walking in the street?”

Geralt doesn’t speak. Surely, surely Jaskier knows what marks of passion look like, how women will dig in their nails and use their teeth when a man hits his stride. Surely he does not have to tell the bard that he has been with Yennefer, admit that he has once more fallen to his knees for a moment of her attention.

“Hellooo, Geralt?” Jaskier sing-songs, but his hands are gentle on Geralt’s skin, not chiding. “You don’t have to tell me, but I promise not to write a song about how the great White Wolf was bested by a gang of brigands with sticks or whatever it was. Wouldn’t want people thinking you’d gone soft.”

He’s gentle as he cleans the wounds, though he cannot help but comment on the way Geralt flinches and winces.

“Getting used to this life, are you?” His mouth is soft as he says the words, pressing the curve of his smile to Geralt’s shoulder before pulling back to smooth salve over the cuts and grazes. “Like a fierce tom cat, ears all ragged, skin and bone, being taken into a house and kept pampered on a lap. Fed three meals in front of the fire. Becoming fat and lazy.” He slides his hand down Geralt’s side, feeling the muscle there, and Geralt finds it hard not to suck in a breath, to feel insecure. He has put on weight, these last few weeks, but it’s weight he’d lost before. His metabolism makes it difficult to put on fat, to be sure, but… is he becoming soft? He leans into Jaskier’s clever hands, anyway, letting them soothe him. “Glossy and sleek, only hunting out of want, not necessity, claws sharp… but knowing better than to bite the hand that feeds.”

Having a companion who knows how to fill Geralt’s silence is always easier than having to fill it himself, to talk to Roach to save himself from going mad, and he’ll never admit it, but Jaskier’s conversation makes the time pass more swiftly.

“Hmm,” he manages, as Jaskier gets to his hair, a tangled mess from Yen’s grasping hands, from being ridden hard, head up against the headboard. “Oh, fuck – “

“That’s it,” Jaskier soothes, slowly finger-combing out the tangles, pulling a little in a gentle tease. “I’ve got you, that’s it, dear Witcher.”

Geralt couldn’t say if it’s the hand in his hair, or the soft kisses pressed to his shoulders, but with a hand on himself, Jaskier’s coaxing words in his ear –

“That’s it, Geralt, you’re safe, I’ve got you, show me every last beautiful moment you have – “

He succumbs to pleasure, and feels Jaskier’s mouth by his ear the whole time he spills, never ceasing.

He wakes impossibly warm, and finds himself nude, tucked into a bed that has no rights to hold the heat as well as it does. When he moves an arm, he finds another warm body beside him – Jaskier, limpet-like, clinging, one leg thrown over Geralt’s. They’re twined together like silver and steel.

Even in his sleep, Jaskier isn’t quiet, soft snores emanating from him, and there’s a line of drool leading from his mouth to Geralt’s shoulder.

“Charming,” Geralt rasps, quietly, striving not to wake the bard. In the dark, and the quiet, he allows himself this one weakness, and strokes Jaskier’s hair, gentle, like touching something precious in a shop that you’re afraid to break but cannot bear to leave without at least knowing what it feels like under your hand.

He’s suddenly consumed with guilt, that he’s here, with Jaskier, when he was just earlier with Yen. Jaskier is sweet and easy and good to him, and Yen is sharp and bright and hard on him, and he cannot decide whether he likes the hand that strokes or slaps the best. To be a Witcher is to balance between pleasure and pain, good and evil. He cannot turn one way or the other.

“Would you forgive me?” he asks, near silent. “She won’t. Would you?”

Jaskier, still sleeping, doesn’t answer. Geralt smiles, ruefully, and curls a little closer around his bard. He gets no more sleep that night.


	2. every time I cried wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt just keeps on walking between two places, neither of which he feels he deserves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to, and title from, Bloodlust, by aeseaes

Geralt finds himself restless within two more days, tired of doing nothing but sitting around and drinking, watching Jaskier get up and sing, earning more coin than Geralt’s seen in the last three months in one night. He doesn’t feel so bad about taking the bard’s hospitality, bed and board, when he sees just how much gold Jaskier’s keeping in a small lockbox under the bed. If it belonged to anyone else, he’d be gone with that coin before dawn.

Instead, he makes the mistake of heading out and into the woods, supposedly for game, but Geralt knows that isn’t what he’s really searching for. His feet take him past the brothel again on the way back, and even while he knows he should not, he steps inside, and sees Yen, draped over a chaise like she’s had nothing better to do than wait for him to come back. He knows that’s not true, no matter how much he might wish.

“I see you couldn’t stay away,” she says, sharply, but her words are belied with how she shifts, letting her gauzy dress slip open to reveal that she’s bare beneath her skirts again. “Come here, so I can give you what no other can.”

He goes to her, falls to his knees and presses his mouth between her thighs, kissing along the soft line of them until he reaches her core, slick and radiating heat. He isn’t gentle, teeth on her clit and tongue fucking her in broad strokes, and for her part, she pulls his hair hard and digs her nails into the back of his neck.

“Yen,” he manages, a strangled sound as he pauses briefly for breath, but she doesn’t wait for anything he has to say, shoving his head back where she wants it and holding him there, taking her own pleasure by rolling her hips against his face, grinding herself against him. He keeps his mouth steady on her, nipping soft folds and thanking Witcher mutations that mean he doesn’t need to pause to breathe as often as another man might. Her scent is always intoxicating, but here, with the taste of her smothering him, he thinks this is the way he’ll always think about her. He growls against her, and feels her shudder, hears her laugh.

“Oh, stop that, you’re a tamed animal when I get my hands on you,” she says, hand tearing at his hair. He’s pretty sure she’s pulled a clump out, but it’s not like it’ll be the first time he’s lost hair, and in much better circumstances. “Like a broken horse, all the better to ride.”

With that, she pulls him away from her, and gestures to the chaise, tutting at the mud on his boots as he settles back, loosening his belt and undoing his breeches.

“That’s enough,” she snaps, and when he starts to stroke himself, she slaps him, hard, and he gasps, breath knocked out of him with the power of her, the strength she has. “You can behave, or you can get out. You’re not worth my trouble.”

“Yen,” he manages, before she’s sinking down on him, and he’s lost, words failing him.

“You’re nothing,” she says, leaning down to whisper in his ear, and the whine he makes would embarrass a lesser man, even as he remembers Jaskier’s mouth there, and the words he said. “You don’t deserve me.”

He knows it’s true, knows he’s nothing to her, knows he’s lucky to have this time in her arms – and he also knows that she doesn’t need to hear him say it. She can pull it out of his mind, and he can keep quiet and let the experience flow over him, like a storm.

He spills inside her, too soon, shamefully soon, and the look on her face, her disappointment, is clear.

“So much for fabled Witcher stamina,” she says, archly, and he doesn’t speak, thinking loudly that any stamina is hopeless when it comes to her. She overrides everything. “Haven’t you heard the expression ladies first?”

“You’re no lady,” he growls, and gets another slap for his troubles, ear ringing as his face stings from a blow that would have broken a cheekbone in another man. “Fuck, Yen – “

“Shut up,” she demands, climbing up his body to settle above his face, his spend dripping out of her, “and use your mouth for something I can stand.”

He obeys. He always obeys her.

When he staggers back to the inn, he’d be lying if he didn’t say that he’s hoping Jaskier will see him again, clearly looking a mess, and take care of him, but the bard is nowhere to be seen. He grunts at the innkeep.

“Bath,” he growls, and sighs at the look the man gives him.

“Uh, my apologies, ser Witcher, but Master Jaskier is… entertaining in the room for the moment, and said he did not wish to be disturbed.” He doesn’t meet Geralt’s eyes. “There’s always the bathhouse, down the road a little way. I believe Master Jaskier has a line of credit there, and of course, we all know that he has extended that credit to you.”

Geralt hates public baths. Firstly, he can always smell what’s gone on, and when the water was last cleaned – and the answer is always ‘not recently enough’, and secondly, if he wanted to wash in lukewarm filth, he’d use a pond. Additionally, his casual nudity gets him approached by people who always seem to want to  _ talk _ . But he’s also fairly certain he has his own seed in his hair, and smells like he’s been ridden hard and put away wet. He gives Roach far better care than Yennefer gives him.

“Fine,” he rumbles, and heads to the bathhouse, determined not to think about why Jaskier entertaining makes him long to storm upstairs, fling the door open and drag whatever whore he’s found from his lap. Jaskier isn’t his, and he’s not Jaskier’s, and he doesn’t have the right to be jealous when he’s just been with Yennefer… but he doesn’t like the thought of another’s hands on his bard.

The girl behind the counter at the baths giggles when he enters.

“A bath. A  _ private _ bath. On Jaskier’s tab.”

“Of course, ser Witcher,” she replies, with a sly smile. “And would you wish to purchase any company while you – “

“No,” he snarls, but it doesn’t seem to deter her, her smile growing even wider at that.

“First door to your right, and then you’re the third room down,” she says, handing him a drying cloth and a key. “The water will be along shortly, and there’s a call bell inside if you need any assistance.”

The ways she says ‘assistance’ gives Geralt no doubt as to what she’s talking about.

“I said, no,” he growls, and takes the items, heading off to a bath that, with any luck, won’t be full of interruptions by women who don’t know where they’re not wanted. He doesn’t let himself dwell on why Jaskier’s company wasn’t unwelcome while he bathed, or why he didn’t mind waking with the bard wrapped around him.

When he goes back to the room, it’s empty, and it’s been cleaned, the scent of the cleaning products light, as if they knew someone with enhanced senses would be using it. Has Jaskier told them that? Does one of his new songs mention how Witchers can scent things mortal men cannot? Either way, he can only smell the fresh lemon and mint the room has been cleaned with, not sweat or any of the other scents he’d associate with Jaskier  _ entertaining _ . The sheets have been changed, too, so there’s no chance of getting a scent off those.

Not that he cares, if Jaskier’s entertaining someone in their room – his room, Geralt reminds himself, it’s Jaskier’s room, he’s just allowed to use it briefly – but it’s always better to know if someone’s asking you to sleep in the wet patch. He hadn’t credited Jaskier with the manners, nor the brain, to remember how good Witcher senses were, and adjust for that. He’d clearly sold the bard short.

He waits into the evening, until a girl comes in to light the lamps, but Jaskier doesn’t return, and Geralt finally gives in, undressing down to smallclothes and snuffing the lamps out, before settling into bed. He allows himself the chance to spread out, taking up as much room as he wants by sprawling in a way he cannot when sharing, and lets sleep settle his mind.

He wakes up with a start, sitting straight up and turning his head to where the sound came from, enhanced night vision telling him that nothing’s there. Geralt hates invisible shit. And then something touches his shoulder, and he jumps.

“Geralt, it’s me, it’s alright,” Jaskier’s saying, as Geralt’s instincts go haywire, but he can feel Jaskier’s fingers stroking along his shoulder, a soft, gentle touch, and slowly lets the adrenaline bleed out of him. “I’m sorry, I know you said never to touch you and wake you, but I thought I shut the door loud enough to wake you before I got into bed. Which you seem to be taking up the whole of.”

Geralt knows his eyes shine in the dark when he turns to Jaskier, but instead of the stink of fear he expects, there’s nothing but a delighted little laugh.

“Yes, yes, you’re very scary, now budge over or I’m going to use that lovely big broad chest of yours as a pillow.”

Geralt very deliberately doesn’t move. He can see Jaskier’s smile grow bigger in the dark.

“Ah, so it’s that way, is it?” the bard says, quietly, to himself more than to Geralt, as he climbs into the bed, arranging himself around the Witcher’s limbs until he can rest his head on Geralt’s chest, one leg thrown over his hip. Geralt is suddenly very aware that Jaskier isn’t wearing smallclothes. “You can’t be comfortable like this, surely.”

“You weigh almost – “ Geralt starts, but Jaskier silences him by sliding a hand down to his smallclothes, and starting to loosen the ties, slowly working the knots until he can gently help them slip off Geralt’s body and toss them out of the bed. Then he settles closer, and Geralt could swear that everywhere the bard’s skin touches his, he’s on fire.

Jaskier’s hand settles in his hair, and strokes, gently, untangling soft strands.

“You bathed,” he says, and Geralt rolls his eyes at the surprise in the bard’s voice. “But I’ve had the room – Geralt, you scamp, have you been keeping company in a bathhouse?” He sounds delighted at the prospect, which makes Geralt feel even more conflicted about his visit to Yen earlier.

“No company,” he bites of, even as Jaskier’s hand slides over his hip, soft and questing, and he bucks a little into that touch. “Just a bath.”

For that, Jaskier pulls his hand back, making Geralt groan, before the bard is pressing a soft kiss to his mouth, pulling away before Geralt can even respond.

“Good boy,” he says, softly, and Geralt can’t help the shudder at those words, the ones that make him feel warm and wanted and needed in a way that nothing else ever has. “Such a good boy, keeping yourself clean. That deserves a present.”

Geralt doesn’t know what Jaskier means, not really, but he’s still lost in that woolly fog of pleasure from his bard’s words, so lies there meekly as Jaskier begins to kiss down his body. His collarbones, his chest, the muscles of his stomach, his hip, his thigh, and then there’s hot breath on his cock and suddenly Geralt wonders if he’s about to experience something he’s only ever paid for, given freely. Something whores do.

“You – “ he begins, but Jaskier’s not interested in hearing his words, for once.

“Shh, good boy,” the bard says, before pressing a kiss to the top of Geralt’s dick, making him twitch. “Let me give you this.”

His mouth is hot and wet and giving, so giving, the way Jaskier is with words. His tongue curls around Geralt’s cock the way it curls and trips over lyrics while he sings, and when Jaskier takes a slow breath and lets Geralt slide down his throat, the Witcher is helpless, hands digging into the sheets as he twists like clothes hung out to dry in a high wind.

“Jas – “ he manages, before his words are cut off by a groan, pleasure building slow and maddeningly gently. “Fuck.”

Jaskier pulls off his cock with a wet pop, and smiles at him.

“Not tonight,” he murmurs, before putting his mouth back to work, hands working slow, soothing circles on Geralt’s trembling thighs. He tries to warn the bard when he reaches his peak, but words are far away, and he doesn’t wish to grab, so instead, he comes in Jaskier’s mouth, and the bard swallows everything he has to give with ease, only pulling back when Geralt’s starting to whine with over-stimulation. “That’s my good boy.”

His voice sounds raspy, and used, and Geralt did that, he made his bard’s voice surrender to the pressure of his cock. He feels guilty about it.

“Let me – “ but once more, Jaskier doesn’t let him speak, kissing him a little more deeply now, with the taste of Geralt’s seed on his lips. The kiss is slow, gentle, not the hungry frenzy of a man seeking to sate his own desires, though Geralt can feel Jaskier’s hardness at his hip as the bard settles back onto his chest.

“Not tonight,” the bard says again, bringing one of Geralt’s hands to his mouth and kissing the knuckles delicately, like he were courting a noblewoman. “You’ve given me everything I could want, don’t fret. Sleep, my wolf.”

The weight of Jaskier on his chest, and the warmth of him, soothes Geralt, even as a voice at the back of his head tries to tell him that he’s being unfair to the bard. He tries to silence it in vain, until Jaskier sighs and moves. Geralt expects him to leave, or kick Geralt off the bed, but instead, the bard wriggles until he’s the one propped up higher on the pillows, and guides Geralt’s head onto his chest.

With a soft hand in his hair, and quiet voice whispering praise, combining with the steady thrum of Jaskier’s heartbeat, Geralt slips into sleep.


	3. if you prefer being quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Geralt's certain that, soon, one of them will demand his faithfulness - and he doesn't know if he can give it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from This Scene I'm Seeing Nightly, by Emily Davis.
> 
> _And it's alright by me if you prefer being quiet  
>  I'm quite content watching the lashes dance above your eyelids  
> It's hard to take things in when you're engulfed in endless noise  
> I'm overjoyed to see the beauty I was blind to when I still my voice_

Waking alone is what Geralt’s used to, and so it takes him a second of cold panic to realise what the heartbeat he can hear is, why there are fingers running through his hair, why he’s warmer than usual, and it smells like sex and sleep. He lets the tension slowly bleed out of him, relaxing in increments as he opens his eyes, until he can hear Jaskier’s breathing calm as well.

“Sleep well?” Jaskier asks, because of course the bard can’t keep quiet. Geralt should be annoyed, but he’s so close and so warm. He burrows his head a little more against Jaskier’s chest, and feels the bard chuckle more than hears it. “A little longer, then. Go back to sleep, Geralt.”

There’s the press of a soft kiss to the top of his head, and the fingers keep combing through his locks, gently rubbing at his scalp, but there’s also the insistence of morning in Geralt’s body, and being this close to Jaskier, smelling sweetly of last night, doesn’t make it easy to go back to sleep. Instead of speaking, he nips at Jaskier’s skin, a small, soft bite, and purrs a little as the bard makes a little yelp.

“Oh, funny this morning, are we?” Jaskier asks, but there’s so much fondness in his tone that it almost makes Geralt close his eyes again, to use his eyelids as shutters against that feeling, against the words the bard isn’t saying to him. “Biting isn’t nice, Geralt, we use our words, not our teeth, when we want to communicate.”

Geralt nips again, and knows he’s pushed his luck too far when Jaskier, with a sigh, starts to shift out from under him, beginning to get off the bed. The noise Geralt makes is high and keening and desperate, something he could never say with words, and Jaskier relents, slipping back into his place. He kisses the top of Geralt’s head again, and all the Witcher can think is that this is something that should be between lovers, partner, not… whatever they are.

“You need to be good for me, sweetheart,” Jaskier says, softly, but the endearment breaks Geralt’s nerve like a rock striking the surface of a pond, and he’s out of the bed before he knows it, tugging on clothes he discarded the night before, and ignoring the way the bard sits up in the bed. “You don’t have to run away every time someone deigns to give you basic courtesy, you know. You can just thank them and accept it.”

His voice isn’t arch and sarcastic like Geralt expects; it’s quiet and longing and filled with disappointment that curdles in Geralt’s stomach like week-old milk. His breath catches, but he fights through it, determined not to give in and sink back down into his bard’s praise and welcoming arms. He knows better than to think he deserves that.

He hears Jaskier sigh, and the rustle of the blankets, before Jaskier is behind him, naked body pressed to Geralt’s half-clothed one, arms around his chest like, if he could just hold on tight enough, he could make Geralt stay.

“Just let me be kind to you,” he murmurs, and if Geralt didn’t have Witcher hearing, he doesn’t think he’d have heard it at all. “Let me show you that not all of your life needs to be hard and complicated. You deserve - ”

Geralt can take no more, ripping himself from the bard’s body and grabbing his sword and coin purse before he’s out of the door, slamming it behind him, and outside, into the pre-dawn light, where the dew clings to his skin and chills him.

He knows what he deserves, and it is nothing like what Jaskier gives him, nothing like being close and warm and held. He knows exactly what he’s worth, down to the last copper piece, and the world owes him nothing but misery.

He’s almost surprised when Jaskier doesn’t follow him, then scolds himself for wanting that, for acting like some spoiled maiden, expecting her swain to follow her, no matter what silly temper tantrum she might be having. He doesn’t go far, just to the stables, where Roach nickers quietly at him, and shoves her muzzle into his hand like she hasn’t got oats and hay freely available.

“He’s even paying to house you, huh girl?” he says, and his voice rasps with disuse and tiredness, loud in the early morning and against nothing but the noise of horses. “Wonder what else he thinks he’s paying for.”

People have tried, before, to pay him to keep company, rather than slaughter whatever monster or problem they’ve found themselves too close to this time, and he’s always sneered at it. He’s not a whore, no matter what is said about him, and he isn’t to be bought – not with coin, not with titles, and not with the promise of skin on skin.

He loses himself in the rituals of keeping Roach in travel-worthy condition, though in truth, she needs very little grooming. He takes his time over it all, hoof to nose, until she’s gleaming like a prized show horse on her way to market. The whole time, she keeps her head turned towards him, and if Geralt didn’t know any better, he’d say that the look in her eyes is pity.

When the sun finally rises, and people start to enter the stables, Geralt presses his head to Roach’s, breathing in her calming scent for a moment, before he steps back and away. It’s not a decent enough hour to go and see Yennefer, but he has done something that he must seek penance for, even if he won’t have the nerve to tell her what that is. She’ll hurt him anyway, whether he speaks or not.

The brothel’s deserted at this hour, anyone who might still be around after Yennefer’s occupation sleeping off the trials of a night of taking plenty of coin and plenty more men. Even Yen doesn’t seem to notice he’s there at first, brushing her hair at a vanity, in a gauzy robe better suited for enticing than covering, but as he stands in the doorway, panting, desperate, she turns around and looks at him. He can feel the weight of her gaze like an anvil on a drowning man.

“You’re not supposed to be here yet,” she says, flatly, and he doesn’t know what she means. He bites his lip and drops to his knees, eyes fixed firmly on the floor, hoping she’ll intuit what he needs, like she normally does, like she always has.

“Please,” he begs, knows how much she likes it when his voice is raw with need and he begs for her to do all sorts of things to him. “Please, Yen, I need – “

“He’s going to be upset by this,” she says, quietly, and Geralt can’t begin to think who she might mean, before she’s muttering in Elder and his clothes are slipping off his body, rope winding around his forearms, locking them together from wrist to elbow. The rope is tight, and not soft, and Geralt struggles a little, to feel it bite into his skin the way he needs. “Come here.”

He crawls to where she’s still seated at the vanity, and settles at her feet, keeping his eyes down. He’ll take anything she can give him, anything to chase away the feeling he’s so adamant he cannot feel. Witchers don’t feel, he reminds himself, you’re incapable of it. All you know is pain and suffering, it’s no wonder you seek it out even in spaces that should be for soft touches from lovers.

“On all fours,” Yen orders, voice cold and utterly void of emotion in a way that makes him shiver even as he scrambles to do her bidding, leaning on his bound forearms and his knees. He can feel the cold bite of her feet on his back, and has to struggle not to tremble. He could hold her weight for hours, all that Witcher stamina for her and her alone, but her power always makes him tremble. “You interrupted me getting ready. I expect silence.”

He’s happy to sink into the quiet place in his head, only focused on holding the pose, the way the rope rasps against him every time he moves, the heaviness of his cock between his legs, thickening at the rough treatment. He can smell her perfume, and her desire, along with the paints and potions she uses to put her face together into a devastating mask that no man can withstand.

“Up,” she snaps, and he realises she’s taken her feet off him. He rushes to obey, her will the only thing that matters to him. “At the end of the bed. Assume the position.”

Trepidation and want thrum within him equally as he places his forearms on the end of the bed and bends over, legs spread. He’s so on display, so vulnerable, and he knows she will hurt him, but exquisite pain from her is not the same as pain at the hands of any other monster. He hears something flying through the air, but keeps his eyes down, feeling the bed move as she climbs onto it, yawning theatrically to prove he bores her.

“Don’t give me a number, you’ll take as many strikes as I wish, and you’ll thank me afterwards,” she commands, and Geralt feels the first hit from the cane, sharp and bright pain blooming over where his thighs and arse meet. He keeps himself braced, and she keeps the blows raining down under magical power, and when she finally breaks the skin, many hours later, he howls as he comes, trembling, every nerve aflame.

“Go to him,” Yennefer whispers, and then the rope unspools from around his wrists, and then it’s just him, alone, naked, bleeding, and utterly lost. He can see from the window that it’s dark outside, that night has come while he’s been at her extremely limited mercy. He hurts in ways he didn’t know he could, but he needs something else, something different. Something she cannot give to him.

Wincing, he pulls on his clothes and stumbles out of the brothel, feet leading him back to the inn like a compass pointing due north.

When he comes back to the room, head bowed, chest tight, bruises and aches throbbing deliciously through his body, Jaskier’s waiting with a hot bath, and Geralt wants to ask how the bard always knows exactly what he needs.

“I’m – “ he starts, but nothing else comes, and he closes his mouth again, ashamed.

“I know,” Jaskier says, almost a whisper. “It’s alright. Bath’s hot, in you get.”

Geralt obeys, stripping off and trying not to tense his shoulders at the hiss Jaskier makes when he sees the welts across Geralt’s thighs and arse, the ligature marks on his wrists and forearms, the nail marks on his chest. He does not want to answer questions about what happened.

“You need to stop letting this happen,” Jaskier says, quietly, as Geralt settles into the hot water, before he’s stepping in as well, having seemingly removed his own garments while Geralt was lost in thought. He opens his arms in a clear invitation, and Geralt wishes he was strong enough to stay away, to keep from touching something he does not deserve to tarnish – but he isn’t. He turns, leaning his back against the bard’s chest, letting himself go almost boneless with the heat of the water on his injuries. “You need to keep yourself safe.”

It takes a moment for Geralt to work out what Jaskier’s talking about, how the wounds must look to someone who has never played with that tightrope of pleasure and pain, and doesn’t know how those signals can be confused in the brain to mean the same thing. But he doesn’t know how to explain that, and so he keeps silent.

Jaskier’s hands are business-like as he gets Geralt clean, not lingering, not like before. The affection is gone from his hands, and Geralt finds himself missing it like he’s missing a limb, like reaching out and finding nothing there. He’s cold, despite the heat of the bath, and can feel himself begin to shake, but just as he worries he will lose control, he is guided back against Jaskier, and there’s a hand on his hip and a hand in his hair, and that clever mouth is murmuring soothing words.

“I’m not angry, sweetheart, I’m not vexed, I know why you seek what you do, I know why you need these things, I just wish you were safer and smarter about it, and knew how to tell us what you want, rather than hoping we just get it right.”

Geralt can hear the words, but doesn’t pay them much heed, because Jaskier’s hands are on him again, soft and deft and keeping him grounded, and the shaking stops, as does the clawing panic in his chest.

“That’s it, my wolf,” Jaskier says, approval rich in his tone, and Geralt can feel that like he’s basking in sunlight on a summer day, how good it feels to belong, to be good, to be owned. “And you’ll sleep with me again tonight, safe and close and mine, in my bed.”

Geralt couldn’t honestly tell how he got from bath to bed, lost in a haze of gentle pleasure, but he comes back to himself when he’s settled on the edge of the bed, nude, with Jaskier behind him stroking fragrant oils into his hair. The scent is light, delicate, and doesn’t bother his sense of smell too much, and besides, Jaskier combs it through, the tines of the comb on Geralt’s head a pleasant soothing sensation, like a scalp massage. He’s purring, a low rumble of sound he rarely makes when he’s awake and aware, but with Jaskier, he finds he does not feel shamed enough to stop.

Later, he drifts into sleep, once more pillowed on Jaskier’s chest. The bard has a hand in his hair and another rubbing small circles on his back, and Geralt lies there, staring at the rope marks around his arms, and tries to ignore the way the guilt burrows into his soul.


	4. be careful what you're giving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier finally gets to show Geralt how he likes to play. Geralt doesn't understand it, but obeys anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to and title from Dream On by Depeche Mode, although I was listening to the Scala cover.

Geralt reckons there might be another two weeks of winter left, but truthfully, he’s almost ready to get back on Roach and leave, alone, just to escape how confusing everything is for him. The weight he’s gained will see him through the lean times well enough that he won’t suffer overmuch if he can find nothing to hunt in the frozen forests. But then Jaskier shifts in the bed next to him, curling around him a little closer, and Geralt has to admit that, as much as everything in him is telling him to run, he is comfortable here. And comfort can be hard to give up.

“I can hear you thinking,” Jaskier says, softly. Geralt hadn’t even realised he was awake. “It’s too early for that. Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

He settles back into the pillows, and Geralt lies there, staring at the rafters and thatch, listening to the rats that populate it, wishing that he was well-enough behaved to follow every single order. As it is, disobeying, even against his will, makes him feel sick to his stomach. When they find out, they will both leave him – Yen because she owns everything she touches and doesn’t ever share, and Jaskier… Jaskier will leave him for the sin of not being honest. The words sit on his tongue, made of lead, and he swallows them down, careless of the poison. He cannot be the one to break this. That would hurt too much.

Geralt manages two days where he doesn’t go to Yennefer, two whole days where he watches Jaskier laugh and smile, where he allows the bard to wash and dress him, gently braid his hair, then install him in a seat downstairs to watch as Jaskier makes coin singing about him. He watches, knowing that to any other watching, he must look like he cares little for the bard’s music. But whenever Jaskier catches his eye, the softness in his own eyes reflects the feral hunger in Geralt’s, and the Witcher always finds he is the first to look away. He is uncomfortable with everything Jaskier’s gaze tells him.

The second night, after Jaskier’s sung himself to that slight rasp that comes before true hoarseness, he slides into a seat next to Geralt, and steals his tankard, drinking in great gulps until the mug is empty, then calling for a refill. He picks food off Geralt’s plate, and Geralt wonders, with horror, if he is eating the bard out of coin. He pushes the plate towards Jaskier, keeping his eyes down.

“I don’t need – “ he starts, and Jaskier sighs quietly, cutting him off, before sliding closer, placing one slim leg over Geralt’s thigh, and bringing the plate with him.

“Uh uh uh, I’m quite content to share a plate with you,” the bard says, quietly, so Geralt doubts anyone else could hear him. “It pleases me. And, well, I know you like to do things that please others, so I decided you could please me.”

The bolt of lust in Geralt’s gut takes him by surprise, wresting a gasp from him before he can stop himself, and he watches Jaskier’s mouth curve up into a smile at the sound.

“And – are there other ways?” Geralt manages to ask, mouth close to Jaskier’s ear now. They must look like secret lovers, here, the bard almost in his lap, Geralt sure his own face must be giving away how much he wants. “To please you?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jaskier murmurs, leaning in until his lips brush the shell of Geralt’s ear, “I was hoping you’d ask.”

Geralt moves as if to rise, but Jaskier shakes his head, confusing the Witcher. They have agreed they want to end up in bed together, why are they not moving straight away. Is Jaskier taunting him?

“Soon, my wolf,” Jaskier says, quietly, and Geralt feels the tension drop out of him like a stone, though it does nothing to dampen his growing arousal, nor stop the tightening of his breeches. “Not yet. Soon. Eat up.”

They sit and eat, Jaskier sometimes licking his fingers, sometimes leaning away from the heat of Geralt’s body to order another drink, or some new titbit, and all Geralt can think is that this is some new torture, so be so close, to be touching like this, and yet to be in public and have to keep his hands to himself. And that it feels so, so good.

The final time Jaskier leans away from him, signalling that he’ll pay up for the night, Geralt hears a tiny whimper, a lost little sound like a dog away from its master, and it’s only when Jaskier strokes his hair that he realises it came from him, that he whimpered at the loss of Jaskier’s body pressed to his. He keeps his eyes down and tries to ignore that his face is burning, even as Jaskier’s fat coin purse is made a little lighter. Then Jaskier turns to him.

“Upstairs, darling,” he says, and as soft and light as his tone is, Geralt knows it for what it is. An order.

The moment they’re alone in the room, Geralt surges to Jaskier’s body, meaning to reach out – and stops, because the bard is shaking his head. Fuck. So this was all something simply to toy with him, to make him feel stupid, to –

“Shh, my wolf,” Jaskier says, leaning up a little to kiss him, barely a brush of lips. “I told you, I want you to be good. So you’ll do what I say, won’t you?”

Geralt drops to his knees like his hamstrings have been cut, head down, wrists at his back, just like he’s knelt for Yennefer countless times. But there’s a hand cupping his chin and lifting it, and then he’s staring into Jaskier’s face.

“Actually, Geralt, I, ah, need your words here,” Jaskier says, a little flustered it seems. “Firstly, when I ask you a question, I expect you to answer it. With words. Secondly, I need you to give me a word that you’ll use if I do something you don’t want, a watchword, so I’ll know if you want me to stop.”

Geralt looks at him with clear puzzlement.

“But… you want me to be good,” he says, haltingly. “Stopping you isn’t good.”

“Gods damn that woman,” Jaskier mutters, and Geralt flinches back at his anger, before the hand on his chin gentles again and the bard is cooing at him. “No, no, darling, it’s alright, I’m not angry with you. This is a safe way to play, that’s all, you need to have a watchword so I can know what’s too much. I want you to be happy pleasing me, and this will mean you can tell me if you’re not. I want you to tell me.”

Geralt’s pretty sure his face says exactly how bizarre he finds all of this, so doesn’t bother with words.

“Do you promise you’ll tell me?” Jaskier asks, quietly. “Those are my rules, if we’re going to do this. You answer my questions, and you use your watchword to stop or pause, if you’re upset or hurting too much or confused by something. Can you follow those rules?”

“Yes,” Geralt says immediately, the word sounding a little broken with how much he wants this.

“Good boy,” Jaskier says, and strokes Geralt’s hair again. He’s so gentle, Geralt almost can’t begin to think how the bard is going to hurt him. “Now tell me your watchword. Something you won’t say otherwise – not stop, or no, or please.”

“Roach,” Geralt says, obediently. He won’t use that during sex, he’s fairly certain.

“Roach,” Jaskier repeats, giving the name weight. “Mine will be lute.”

Geralt isn’t sure why the one giving pain would need a watchword, but he isn’t interested in questioning it. He wants whatever sweet pain Jaskier can give him, wants to be useful, wants to be used.

“Lute,” he rasps.

“That’s it,” Jaskier says, smiling at him with an expression Geralt cannot parse. “Now, are you ready to start?”

“Yes,” Geralt says, and closes his eyes against how needy it sounds. “Please.”

The first thing Jaskier asks for is to remove his clothes, and Geralt stands there, waiting for the pain as Jaskier undresses him, taking him out of the clothes he put him into. That shouldn’t be as good as it is, shouldn’t make Geralt’s knees tremble, but the rules never seem to matter for Jaskier.

The second thing is for him to lie down on his back on the bed, hands above his head, and he stays obediently as Jaskier brings out some leather cuffs, held together by a short steel chain, and cuffs him to the bed’s meagre headboard.

“Could you break those, if you needed to?” Jaskier asks, and like all questions, Geralt knows he must answer.

“Yes,” he says, and nothing more. His voice is so quiet here, driven out of him only by the rules. He prefers not to speak, to get lost in his mind while he is being used and hurt and fucked, but he has to obey the rules. Otherwise, he is worthless.

“Good. Use your word first, because I don’t really want to explain to the publican why we’ve broken his one good bed, but if you need to break them, do so. If things are too much and you need your hands fast, break them.”

Geralt truly doesn’t understand what Jaskier’s going on about, or why he’d allow Geralt to be able to get away, but then reminds himself that he won’t. Just like he won’t use his word. Nothing is too much punishment for him.

“Now, close your eyes,” Jaskier says, and Geralt obeys. He jolts as he feels something being wrapped around his face, only relaxing when he realises it seems to be a blindfold of sorts, keeping his vision from him. That’s fine. A Witcher has many more senses to rely upon. “Good boy, you’re being so good for me. Don’t be afraid to be loud for me, I want to hear you.”

Geralt lets himself start to drift into the space he goes when someone is going to hurt him badly, in sweet anticipation. So when Jaskier’s mouth touches his ankle, he twitches, hearing Jaskier chuckle slightly, rather than admonish him.

That mouth trails up one leg and then the other, before bypassing his cock entirely and shifting to his fingers. Both arms are kissed and nuzzled – no teeth, but perhaps Jaskier’s just trying to unsettle him – before there are feather-light kisses to his temples, his face, his jaw, his throat. For that, he arches up, moaning, wordlessly begging for more, for Jaskier to bite down and mark him, but he only gets a softer kiss in response.

When Jaskier’s mouth finds a nipple, and licks gently over it, Geralt makes a noise like the air has been punched out of him, the small stimulation so much after so little.

“Fuck, Geralt, you’re so good,” Jaskier murmurs, and he sounds breathless as he fits himself up against Geralt’s body, hard cock pressing against one of Geralt’s thighs and leaving a trail of wetness there. “So good, I don’t deserve this at all. What did I do to get you to be so good for me?”

It’s a question, but Geralt doesn’t know the answer, and so he says nothing, even as his hips buck without his permission.

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry, I’ll get to you soon,” Jaskier croons, hot breath on Geralt’s cock reminding him of just how good it was to be in Jaskier’s mouth, how incredible it felt. “Just let me worship you first. A body like this, a man like you – that deserves my worship.”

Geralt is uncomfortable with the admiration. This isn’t like what he does with Yen, not like what he’s paid for before, when whores have beaten him and clawed at him and ridden him like he was just a vessel for their pleasure. It feels wrong, but he can’t deny how hard he is, and how badly he wants Jaskier to keep touching him.

“Roll over for me,” Jaskier commands, and Geralt obeys, the chain on the cuffs allowing him just enough slack to do so. “Up on your knees.”

This, Geralt understands, taking the position to be beaten, and he does so easily, face pressed to the mattress, knees apart. He can feel the bounce of his cock like this, the tug at his balls reminding him that he is completely at the mercy of his bard.

“Such a beautiful sight,” Jaskier says, one hand stroking along Geralt’s arse in a show of ownership so strong that Geralt shudders with it. “Knees a little further apart, darling, that’s it.”

When Geralt feels breath on him, he assumes Jaskier is simply looking to see how the marks from Yennefer have healed, so when he feels a mouth on him, he jolts away before he can stop himself. No one, ever –

“Too much?” Jaskier asks, carefully. “Do you need to use your word?”

Geralt shakes his head. He doesn’t want this to stop, doesn’t want this to be over before he’s a desperate mess, a wreck shaped by Jaskier’s hands.

“No,” he pants. “Not too much.”

“You’re so good for me,” Jaskier says, and then Geralt is lost to sensation, because Jaskier’s mouth is on him, face pressed between his cheeks, tongue on his hole, and Geralt has been fucked before, by men and women, but no one has ever done this. He feels like he’s burning up, like the world is crashing down and being made anew and he can do nothing but twist in his bonds, trying to resist the urge to press back into that amazing mouth.

Jaskier’s tongue presses inside him, and Geralt arches his back, crying out before he can stop himself, because it’s so intimate and so filthy and it’s Jaskier doing this to him.

“Please,” he whimpers, giving up all attempts to keep his hips still and starting to press back into Jaskier’s tongue and the grip where he’s holding Geralt spread. “Too much, I’ll – “

“Come whenever you need, darling,” Jaskier says, pulling away for just a second before shoving his face back down to where it makes Geralt moan and whimper and wail, cock spitting pre-come against his belly and dripping down onto the bed. He doesn’t know how long he lasts – it could be a few seconds, it could be an eternity – but he comes, untouched, crying out for his lover.

“Jas – “ he manages, but Jaskier doesn’t stop, continues to fuck into him with his tongue, and Geralt shakes with sensitivity, over-used, and loves every second of it. “Jas, please, please, Jas, please.”

Jaskier doesn’t stop until Geralt, words long gone, comes with a loud wail. There are tears on his cheeks, and as he tries to regain composure, he realises that he cannot stop shaking and crying, sobs breaking out of him. He feels Jaskier by his head and turns his face to nuzzle the bard’s thigh, trying to calm himself enough to breathe properly. Jaskier’s hand in his hair is grounding him, keeping him anchored, and he wants it to stop, wants more, wants to stay in this moment forever.

“Good boy,” Jaskier murmurs, over and over, but when Geralt doesn’t calm, he pulls away, wrenching a desperate wail from the Witcher. “Do you need your word, sweetheart? Do I need to stop?”

“Don’t stop,” Geralt manages, even as it ends on a shaking breath. “Please, don’t stop.”

The kiss that’s pressed to his hair feels sweeter than the sting of any slap.

Jaskier doesn’t wait for Geralt to calm down all the way before he’s pulling a cork out of a bottle, and Geralt can smell chamomile, the scent he always thinks of as theirs, the one they share, and pressing a slick finger into him. Geralt grips the headboard, digging his nails into the wood, and tries not to beg.

By the time Jaskier has him up to three fingers, he’s given up, every other word a ‘please’ or ‘more’ or some variation of the bard’s name, and he’s fully hard again.

When Jaskier presses in, he steals all of Geralt’s words, and nothing but a high-desperate cry comes from the Witcher as Jaskier keeps a slow, steady press in until he’s full. But the jackrabbit thrusts Geralt expects don’t come. Instead, every thrust is at a glacial pace, giving Geralt so much pleasure, but not enough to make him come. Jaskier’s breath is hot on his back, his hands stroking over Geralt’s hips but never gripping, and Geralt’s never felt so connected to his body while utterly disconnected before.

Eventually, Jaskier does up the pace, and Geralt’s entire world narrows down to the cock inside him and the way Jaskier keeps murmuring things, little breaths of “darling” and “so good” and “perfect”. It’s these that push Geralt over, coming again with something he’ll never admit to be a scream, hearing Jaskier’s completion come with a reverent whisper of his name.

“Geralt – “ and that’s it, Geralt lost to pleasure. He’s barely aware when Jaskier slips free, but rouses very quickly when Jaskier’s mouth is back on his hole, licking his own seed up, and Geralt’s cock gives a valiant twitch before he’s coming again, probably dry, shaking all over.

When he comes back to himself, he’s been uncuffed, and the blindfold is no longer tied around his eyes, although they are still closed. Jaskier is wiping him down with a warm, damp rag, and keeping up a litany.

“So good for me, darling, you were so perfect, I couldn’t ask for anything better, I’m so proud of you, you did so well, you’re everything I need, you’re wonderful, I love you so much, you’re so good, sweetheart….”

Geralt allows himself to be manhandled beneath the blankets and drawn close to Jaskier, his head pillowed on the bard’s chest as fingers are run through his hair, and all the while, those words keep coming, keep reminding him what Jaskier thinks.

When he thinks he can form words, Geralt slowly opens his eyes, finding the room almost dark, aside from one lit candle.

“Hello sweetheart,” Jaskier greets him, before kissing his forehead. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

Geralt surges up to kiss him, fierce at first, then mellowing as he follows Jaskier’s lead, before tucking himself up against his bard’s chest again, picking up one of Jaskier’s hands and leading it to his hair. He hears Jaskier chuckle, and then his hair is being petted again.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jaskier says, softly, and as Geralt begins to settle into a contented sleep, he listens to Jaskier’s heartbeat – steady, strong – and lets himself begin to purr.


	5. I never say no

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, this chapter contains BDSM taken too far, graphic descriptions of how subdrop feels and what it feels like to have a panic attack. Read with care
> 
> Chapter title from Home by AlicebanD

It rattles Geralt to wake in the morning and feel utterly content, utterly safe, and not have anything sting, nothing burning, no wounds that need tending. It feels so very wrong for him to have taken his pleasure and not be damaged by it. He knows exactly what a Witcher’s lot in life is supposed to be, and at no point should it be something as soft, as delicate as Jaskier, calling him darling and sweetheart, acting like he’s something worth treasuring. Like the poet doesn’t also know that it doesn’t matter what he sings, that it doesn’t matter how good Geralt may act, his lot will never change. He is what he was made to be, and he was made to be a monster. So he should want monstrous things.

That’s what makes it so much easier to go to Yennefer, so much simpler to be called a beast and treated rough and hard. He still enjoys himself, and no one demands he do something as patently ridiculous as tell them to stop when it’s all too much. Yen never tells him to use his words; she doesn’t want to hear from him any more than he wants to speak. He recalls Jaskier making him beg and plead, making him loud, and it’s this that sends him from the bed, the bard still snoring softly. He makes sure he’s quiet as he slips on his clothes, just breeches and a shirt with boots, and gathers the rest of his things into a bundle. When he leaves them in the stable next to Roach, she won’t even look at him, and he doesn’t blame her.

It’s not even close to dawn, but Geralt’s itching under his skin, buzzing like he’s downed three potions and has to wait for the toxins to wear off. He knows if he lies in that bed any longer, if he touches Jaskier once more, he won’t leave. He won’t ever leave, and that’s not ever something anyone wants. No one wants a Witcher for paramour, to follow them around, lovesick and lost. You pay Witchers, and sometimes you allow them to exchange some of that coin for affection from the sort of women that any respectable village already considers ruined, but you don’t treat them with kindness. When a wolf is at your door, you don’t leave out meat scraps before opening up your house and pointing out the blazing hearth, expecting it to settle like a dog. Anyone with any sense knows the difference between something tamed with sweetness and softness, and something tamed with cruelty, and recognises him for which he is.

Brothels don’t really ever close, and so when he steps inside, there’s a moment of hush as girls waiting for clients – or recovering from them – give him the weary look of a professional who doesn’t want to deal with whatever he wants.

“Yennefer,” he bites out, and one of the girls scurries to get the sorceress for him, vanishing like she’s glad to get out of his sight. He catches sight of himself in the looking glass above the tiny bar that caters to the patrons, and looks away hurriedly. He looks… wrung out, paler than usual, hair mussed from sleep and Jaskier’s fingers, and it hurts to see himself like that. It isn’t something he’s supposed to be.

Yennefer glides out of the dark of a corridor and looks him up and down, clearly finding him wanting.

“You reek of him,” she says, and Geralt can feel the coil of tension in his stomach grow tighter, ready to spring open and tear him apart. This is it; this is where she takes the choice from his hands and walks away. He deserves far worse. “Is this how you come to me now, reeking of your lover, here because only I can hurt you like we both know you need?”

He can only nod, wordlessly, and watch pity flare in her eyes before she controls herself, tucking her feelings back behind those violet eyes and the misery they promise him.

“Did you tell him?” she asks, slinking closer. “Did you call my name instead of his, did you blurt it out in a fit of passion and he chose to send you away? Is that what this is? Am I to be your second choice?”

He doesn’t know how to tell her that there isn’t a choice, that he needs both of them to breathe, that he needs both cruelty and kindness and knows he cannot have either, not for long. That this is his way to say goodbye to her before he moves on. That she gets a goodbye, because he can risk it, because he can’t risk it with Jaskier. He never needs his words when he’s with her, and this time is no different, no matter how changed he feels. She nods, and walks away, and he follows, because there is nothing else left for him to do.

He can smell her, in the dark, but can equally smell Jaskier on himself, can smell the remnants of his spend and that of the bard, and wishes he’d taken the time to bathe before coming to see Yen, but he couldn’t waste the time. He needs to be hurt, needs to be reminded of exactly what will get from the world, forever, rather than recall Jaskier’s soft touch and how good it felt. That’s not something to get used to, not something he can afford to find himself longing for. He’s lived lifetimes without the bard, after all, lifetimes without Yennefer, lifetimes alone. When they’re both gone, he’ll spend more lifetimes alone, too. It doesn’t do to get used to something he cannot keep.

“In here,” Yennefer says, voice clipped and short, but there’s a tiredness to her tone that speaks of how she already wearies of him. How she did not expect to see him so soon, if at all, and how she finds him inconvenient. He follows her into the dark room, lit dimly a moment later by Yen’s idle handwave bringing the candles to life. “You know what to do.”

Geralt doesn’t know when he stopped being able to take anything the world could dish out, but he finds himself on his feet, lashed to two crossed planks of wood, arms and legs spread, with a gag in his mouth. He can hear Yennefer, and knows that he’s been hurt, because his back is on fire, and his thighs, too. The soles of his feet have either been burned or whipped so hard that the sensation is the same, because standing feels like holding hot coals. He can smell his own blood, knows that his wounds will need attention, that he won’t be able to shrug off the pain all by himself, and that’s the thought that gives him pause.

The whip comes down again, splitting his skin, and he screams into the rag tied into his mouth, feeling his back open up. She could be flaying him; he doesn’t know, because his entire world is tinged red with pain, every sense utterly focused on what’s happening to him. Usually, pain gives him a glorious haze to exist within, keeps him from his reality, but this is sharp, too real, too current. He’s awake to this pain, and it is unbearable, like the sort of pain given in a fight, not in a tryst. Funny, until now, he didn’t know those types of pain were different. It’s that, maybe, that makes him try it, before he knows what he’s doing.

“What was that?” Yennefer asks, pausing, and Geralt tries again to make himself heard through the gag. “Oh, something you want to say? Sorry for waking me up, perhaps, sorry for never being man enough to use your words?”

When she unties the gag, Geralt has to swallow a couple of times before he has the ability to speak.

“Roach,” he croaks, realising even as he says it that it means nothing to her. But he can’t find any other words, can’t find the way to tell her what it’s supposed to mean, so just says it again, desperately. “Roach.”

To his surprise, Yen looks genuinely horrified, and snaps some words to a girl, who vanishes almost instantly, even as she starts to untie him. He doesn’t understand why she’s stopping, why she’s acting as if she’s done something wrong. He’s the one who fucked up, he always is, he can’t make anything work, and he knows that. He drops to his knees, heedless of the feeling of his skin splitting as it hits the stone floor, heedless of the way his head is ringing, the depth of where he is too far to climb out without help.

Yennefer tries to drag him off his knees, but standing is beyond him, and he can feel his breath coming fast, too fast, and the blood trickling down his back and pooling under his knees, and the throb of his own heart, rabbit-quick in a way no Witcher should ever have to feel. He stays kneeling, because at least if he’s silent and keeps his position, he might not fuck this up worse than he already has. He wonders if the extra cruelty is Yen’s way of punishing him for touching Jaskier, for wanting Jaskier, or if she’d been planning this for days, and was working up to it. All he knows is that instead of the way his body usually sings, it’s screaming now. So much for leaving town – he can’t get on a horse in this state. Can’t even get to his own feet.

“Fuck’s sake, Geralt, get the fuck off the floor,” Yen shouts, and slaps him across the face, hard. Geralt can hear the ringing of his ears, feel himself sway with the impact. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t – “

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

Geralt hears Jaskier’s voice, and instantly knows that this is the last time he will ever see the bard. To see him like this, breathing too fast, barely able to see over the way the world feels like it’s fading away, naked, covered in his own blood, and at Yennefer’s feet. It hurts even more to know it’s probably only the last part that’s going to take his bard away from him.

“He used his word, the word you told me,” Yennefer says, but she sounds so distant that Geralt is hardly listening. He feels drunk; not the nice sort of drunk where you’re warm and tipsy and everything feels brilliant, but the shit sort where you wish you could vomit just to feel better, and your head pounds, and you want water and ice and to lie down forever. The sort where you’d beg for death just to stop the feeling. “I stopped, I – “

“After you’d taken him to pieces,” Jaskier says, so quiet that Geralt can barely hear him. “When you knew how delicate everything was, how careful I’ve been to try and teach him about consent. I know you weren’t taught properly either, but you might have been better turning him away this time.”

“He was leaving,” Yennefer says, also quiet. Geralt doesn’t know why she sounds like it would bother her, if he were to go. She could have anyone she wants. “I just wanted to touch him again.”

Jaskier doesn’t seem to grace this with an answer, because the next time Geralt is aware, there’s a hand cupping his jaw, and he’s flinching back from it before he can manage anything else, before he can realise he’ll be punished for moving away without permission. Then he realises the hand isn’t Yennefer’s soft one, but Jaskier’s lute-callused hand, and presses into it with a whine. He doesn’t deserve good treatment, doesn’t deserve the softness Jaskier always gives him, but he wants it, especially now.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Jaskier says, sounding like Geralt’s at the bottom of a well, all echo and distance. “I need you to focus on your breathing for me, darling, can you do that for me?”

It’s a question, and Geralt knows he is supposed to answer Jaskier’s questions, so he manages to wheeze something, realises he can’t speak, and nods instead.

“Good, good boy,” Jaskier praises, and something in Geralt still sits up at that, begs, like it was taught. Jaskier picks up one of his hands – surely bloody, surely he’s going to make a mess of the bard’s silks – and presses it to his own chest, so Geralt can feel the rise and fall of Jaskier’s chest with his breathing. “Follow my breathing now, sweetheart, try to get yours to meet mine, we’ll work on slower than that once we’ve got you to my pace.”

Even his voice lacks its usual lilt, the way his sentences are long, like the songs he sings. His words now are slow and soft, no hesitations, no pauses, just firm commands. Geralt presses his face into that hand on his jaw harder, still whining. Jaskier’s thumb starts to stroke his jaw.

“So good for me, darling, you’re my good boy, aren’t you?” Jaskier murmurs, then gestures for Yennefer to come and join him. Sure, she might be the one who provides the pain Geralt so desires, but she needs to learn to be gentle, too. Aftercare might not be something Aretuza taught her, nor Kaer Morhen taught Geralt, but Jaskier learnt to play these games at courts and noble houses, and he was taught how to ensure your playthings leave happy, satisfied, and without any more bruises than they wanted. “How do you feel about being  _ our _ good boy?”

Geralt’s breath hitches, want and fear in equal measure turning into confusion, because Yennefer’s settling on the floor too, next to Jaskier, and putting her warm, soft hand gently onto his thigh, where her hands draw idle patterns. Struggling, Geralt manages to spread his legs a little, but that just makes Yen’s hand go still. He doesn’t want that. He needs her touch too, needs them both so much, and they’re going to make him choose. He’d rather be alone than be forced to choose which gets saddled with him for as long as they can stand him.

There are tears running down Geralt’s face, he becomes aware, but he can also feel his breathing start to slow, in order to give him enough oxygen to sob. At first, he doesn’t have it, almost retching with the effort to both cry and draw breath, but his breath starts to slow, to chase the rhythm Jaskier sets for him, the timing of Yennefer’s hand on his thigh.

“Want,” he manages, the word more whisper than sound. “Want to be yours.”

The noise Yennefer lets out at that makes him flinch away, waiting for the hit that will follow his disobedience, but it doesn’t come. Instead, when his eyes open, he can see Jaskier has an arm around Yennefer, the hand not holding Geralt’s. That hurts more than being whipped had, hurts more than the time he got manticore venom in an open wound, because they’re not going to choose him if they can have each other.

He must either pass out or lose track of time, because the next thing Geralt knows, he’s on his belly on a bed, and there are strong, hot hands smoothing something soothing into his back. His breath speeds up, but the hands stay slow and gentle, just enough pressure not to tickle, but nor to hurt. When the hands leave his body, Geralt feels disappointment, but then Jaskier’s scent envelops him, and there’s a kiss pressed to the crown of his head.

“Nearly done, our good, sweet boy,” Jaskier praises, and Geralt can’t disguise the noise of want he makes at that. “Yeah, that’s what you want, isn’t it? Want to belong to me and Yen, and have no one else touch you ever again?”

Geralt feels himself shiver with that, with the idea of belonging to two people who give him both the fire and ice he needs to feel truly worth something, and then there’s another pair of hands on him, Yennefer’s hands, and the broken, drawn-out sound he makes mixes with the sound of a sniffle from her.

“Yes,” he says, because Jaskier wants to hear him answer questions, and he wants so much to be good, so much to please them both enough to keep him. “Yours.”

Time must pass, because Geralt finds himself in the bed in the inn, the bed that smells like himself and Jaskier, and the bard is at his back, not touching aside from one hand on his unblemished hip. It is Yennefer who is in front of him, eyes red-rimmed like she’s been crying, which can’t be the case, and naked. He wonders if Jaskier is naked, too.

When he reaches for her, Yen buries herself in his arms with a speed that hurts, but his wince is soothed by Jaskier’s presence behind him. He’s safe here, he reminds himself, safe with his bard. Jaskier hasn’t hurt him yet.

“Our good boy,” Jaskier says, voice warm and rich, and Geralt wants that mouth on him, those words in his ear. “No, don’t try to turn over, you’re hurt.”

“I’ll heal,” Geralt says, which feels like the first sentence he’s managed for days.

“You’ll heal faster without us making you lie on your back for us,” Jaskier says, wryly, the voice of reason. Geralt wonders when thinking of the bard as the sensible one of them became so constant.

“And you’ll heal fast enough that it won’t be too long,” Yen adds, though she presses a soft, chaste kiss to his cheek.

“Too long,” Geralt rumbles, watching Yen’s mouth quirk up into a smile. “Need to be yours.” But he’s tired, the exhaustion from the day, the weeks of flitting between two lovers and believing it to be a deception catching up with him, and he yawns on the last word.

“Soon,” Jaskier says, kissing a spot on his shoulder that doesn’t seem to sting too much. “For now, darling, we need you to sleep for us.”

As he has always been, Geralt is powerless to resist them.


	6. use you as a makeshift gauge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaskier helps to guide Yennefer and Geralt through something a little softer than their usual scenes, and teach them both about how this sort of game is supposed to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from, and written to, "I Found" by Amber Run. The acoustic version.
> 
> The full line is "And I'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take"... which is basically Jaskier in this story.
> 
> Apologies if updates slow even more, currently my right arm is in a brace, and typing is a nightmare! I've damaged a nerve in my elbow, so I need everyone to send healing wishes my way, in the hope that I will soon be able to bend my arm without pain!

Geralt wakes as he usually does, with a gasp of fear as he sits up, looking to see what has woken him, looking for the silent attacker who is ambushing him at his camp or in the inn. When he realises there’s a weight on him, pinning him down, he starts to struggle, but then he smells a familiar scent, even as he realises Jaskier’s hand is on the back of his neck 

“Shh, Geralt, it’s only us, you’ll reopen your back, sweetheart, I need you to be still for me.”

Geralt is helpless to resist, going soft and pliant until his eyes manage to focus and he realises he’s looking at Yennefer, which makes him startle, shifting backwards with a hiss of pain as he smacks into a warm body, but he keeps his eyes on the sorceress.

“Please, Yen, don’t,” he begs, managing to get the words out. “It’s not fair, don’t put him in the illusion, please.” But he knows he deserves to be tortured with the idea that he might be able to have them both, and so he doesn’t move, just watches her, even as her mouth twists and she shakes her head.

“I said this wouldn’t work,” she says, flatly, to the figure behind him, and starts to get out of the bed - they’re all in a bed? Never in his wildest fantasies has he thought that would happen, not really, and it’s that which makes him take in the scents and sounds and sensations, pausing to gather himself. “I should go.”

“No,” Geralt says, surprising all of them, he thinks, although he feels Jaskier press a kiss to his shoulder and shivers into the contact. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I hurt you,” she says, like that’s supposed to put him off, like that isn’t what he went to her for. “More than you wanted.”

Geralt just shrugs. It’s been a long time since anyone cared how badly they hurt him.

“I guess that’s where I step in,” Jaskier says, gently, walking around the bed so that they’re both in Geralt’s eyeline. He realises, idly, that they’re all naked, and curses his wakefulness for stealing from him the chance to lie between them and doze. “I… have some experience in these sort of games, more experience than either of you two, clearly, and I want to show you how to be, uh, safe, I guess?”

Yennefer shifts a little uneasily at that, but scoffs when Jaskier suggests he has more experience than her. Geralt privately agrees, even as he says nothing to dispute Jaskier’s words.

“As if, bard,” she says, but it’s not the venom she normally holds for him. It’s softer, tempered with something Geralt can’t identify, thinks he could go a thousand lifetimes and still never quite know what’s in the edges of her voice. But it suits her.

“Alright, alright, not exactly more experience, thank you, but I was at least taught how to manage the aftermath a little better than witcher school and whatever hell dimension spawned you, witch.” Jaskier says, but he’s smiling, and the way he looks at Yennefer makes something go cold in Geralt. He’s looking at her the way he looks at Geralt, the same fond smile he has when Geralt once more fails to live up to the standards of society, and makes some faux pas. “I was taught how to make things safe for squishy humans, so I’m going to be the one leading in this little escapade.”

Geralt feels cold, lost, alone; he’s in bed, naked, with the two people he loves so much it makes him ache, and neither of them is looking at him.

And then Jaskier turns his head, and his gaze is like the sun, warming every cold inch of Geralt that he thought was not worth the light of day. His heart in his mouth, he looks back, afraid Jaskier will read his soul simply with a look.

“I’ll be gentle,” the bard says, soft and honest, a promise, and Geralt gives in. Whatever Jaskier wants to give, he’ll take.

  
  


Jaskier gets them all out of bed, into clothes, and then makes the bed, carefully, more carefully than Geralt really thinks such a moment merits. Then he sits down, and pats the soft coverlet.

“Join me,” he says, smile easy and welcoming. “This bit’s the talking, before we get to anything fun, I’m afraid, so I thought we might all feel a little less vulnerable like this.”

Geralt sits, aloof and separate, until Jaskier tugs on his arm like a puppy trying to carry a whole log home, and Geralt goes with it, shifting until he’s pressed against the bard’s side. Yennefer sits primly on the other edge, but squawks as Jaskier drags her closer too.

“So, I’ve got my watchword, which is lute. A watchword, we discussed this last time, Yen, is what someone uses when they no longer feel comfortable in a scene, and want to stop. Some people have one for slow down, one for stop, but I figure we’ll stick to the basics for now,” Jaskier chatters, and Geralt finds himself relaxing at the familiar sound. “When that word is said, all play stops, understand? Everything stops, we question whoever used their word as to what they want, if they can answer. If not, we simply remove any extra toys, help them sit, and then, depending on who it is, step away or stay close. I prefer space when I’m overwhelmed, but Geralt prefers touch. And your word, Geralt?”

“Roach,” Geralt says, without hesitation, and feels warm all over when Jaskier beams at him and pats his thigh with one hand, praise for doing a good job. “Lute. Roach.” He looks at Yennefer.

“Piglet,” she says, eventually, voice quiet. She doesn’t explain herself. “I… don’t know what I’d need.”

“Thank you for letting me know that,” Jaskier says, still so gentle, as if the two of them are wild horses, and could spook at any moment. “We’ll have to do some trial and error, see what works for you. So, piglet. Roach. Lute. Our watchwords.”

“And the punishment for using them?” Yennefer asks, tone fierce and mocking, the way she talks when she wants to hurt, and doesn’t really care how much damage she does to herself in the process. Geralt hates that voice. 

“There’s no punishment,” Jaskier says, voice firm. This is something on which he will not budge, Geralt thinks, and presses two fingertips to Jaskier’s thigh in thanks. “Once a watchword is used, we’re outside of reward and punishment, we’re outside of that game.”

“I’ve known some keep it up the whole time,” Yen says, archly, in challenge.

“And they are either much better adjusted than we all are, know each other very well, or bloody stupid,” Jaskier replies, tone agreeable. “On the other hand, I have a sorceress who was trained that everyone will betray her for a price, and a Witcher who was taught to take what he was given and never complain. And me, who has a funny way of not listening when people tell me I can’t do something.”

Geralt can’t argue with that - not even a gut punch and being kidnapped by elves scared Jaskier off him, so he doubts much will. He’d thought maybe this would be the only thing to do so, and it appears that even in this, he underestimated his bard.

“So we’ll have scenes,” Yennefer says, flatly. “And then afterwards, you’ll - “

“Afterwards,” Jaskier says, firmly, cutting her off, “I’ll look after you both. I like aftercare, it’s not a chore for me, and it doesn’t come easily to you. And Geralt… well, Geralt will most likely be too wrecked for it. In the best way, of course.” 

“You sure?” Geralt asks, keeping his voice quiet and low, feeling like he’s stumbled into some sort of sacred vow. Jaskier kisses his cheek, a casual moment of intimacy that makes Geralt duck his head, almost dizzy with the pleasure of that simple movement. “Don’t want to put everything on you.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll make demands,” Yennefer says, archly.

“Mm, footrubs and hot baths,” Jaskier purrs, leaning into the sorceress’ space a little, and Geralt’s almost surprised when she tolerates it, petting his hair a little. “Or that, I can be into that.”

“Any other rules?” she asks, voice going playful again. “Or do we need to talk until you’re old and grey, bard?”

“You don’t try to own me,” Jaskier says, solemnly. “We all have these hard limits, things we won’t do - I don’t go down for you, either of you, and that’s final. Maybe, if we work out… but for now, it’s a no, and I won’t be swayed on that. I will not go to my knees and beg. And don’t worry if you can’t work out your limits yet, if we run up against them in play, use your watchword, and make it stop.”

“No scars,” Geralt blurts out, fast and garbled, before slowing down and repeating himself. “No more scars.”

Yennefer looks at her hands in her lap, until Jaskier slips one over hers.

“No talk of babes,” she says, quietly, swallowing hard, and Geralt watches as Jaskier’s fingers tighten on hers. “How I would look round with child - none of it.”

“Understood,” Jaskier murmurs, and Geralt thanks whatever gods might be listening - because all gods are perverts - that he and Yen have Jaskier, who is so much better at words and people than either of them. “And of other lovers?”

Geralt makes a noise at that, which he silences almost instantly, but not fast enough for Jaskier not to hear it.

“Words, Geralt, you know one of my rules for you is that you answer my questions with words,” he says, with a tiny smile, like he knows what Geralt’s going to say, and is looking forward to it.

“No one else,” Geralt growls, even though he knows that he, of all people in this little grouping of three, has the least say in others taking more than one lover. “Just the three of us.”

“Agreed,” Yennefer says, looking at Jaskier with amusement. “Any problem with that, bard?”

There’s a moment that feels like standing on the edge of a precipice, where Geralt knows this could be the thing that sends Jaskier running. The bard’s a known philanderer, after all, a flirt and a scourge on all women, married or not, and might not take too kindly to being made to remain faithful, albeit to two lovers. 

And then Jaskier smiles, drawing first Yennefer in for a kiss, then Geralt, little more than a chaste press of lips.

“Thank goodness,” he says, when he pulls away from Geralt. “Because between the two of you, I don’t think you’re going to leave me much energy or time!”

  
  


To Geralt’s surprise, Jaskier doesn’t take them both to bed, but instead leads them down into the tavern proper, ordering breakfast for the three of them, and sitting casually across from Geralt and Yennefer, smiling with the expression Geralt knows means he’s planning something. His breeches get tight as he thinks about what sort of plan Jaskier might be forming.

He gets a bit of an idea as Jaskier’s stockinged foot runs over Geralt’s lap, making him choke on his apple juice before he relaxes into it, trying to tell Jaskier with his eyes that he’s alright with the contact. Yennefer doesn’t appear to have a similar problem, though Geralt can smell her arousal on her, simmering just below the surface. He expects Jaskier to take them to bed once their fast is broken, but instead, he leads them out into the sunlit morning.

“Market today,” he says, and squeezes the hand Geralt has in his, knowing without a word that the Witcher is thinking of a different town, and a different market, and a girl he had to kill without ever knowing if he’d made the right choice. “I thought we’d have a walk, build an appetite.”

If Geralt had thought that Jaskier and Yennefer were beautiful in bedchambers, lit by the pale light of dawn or the glow of lamplight, that is nothing to how they look when the sun touches their dark hair, throwing lighter strands into it, shining off them with such a brightness that it seems to Geralt that it hurts to look at them.

They are so perfect, he thinks, that’s what sets them apart from him, that’s what makes them something he cannot possibly deserve.

And then Jaskier turns to look at him, gesturing to him to catch up with a smile, and as he approaches, they part for him, flanking him on either side. Geralt thinks they must look stupid together, his height and white hair paired with the two of them, smaller and dark haired. But he’s content, nonetheless, to settle between them, each of them taking on of his arms when they stand at the market stalls, Yennefer taking an interest in a brooch, even as Jaskier eyes a dagger with a mother-of-pearl inlaid handle.

Suddenly, Geralt understands why there are men who will toil long hours, some deep underground, just for the chance to buy their partner some pretty bauble she has her heart set on, why mages are always gifted items, why bards are sometimes showered in jewels at a court. In that moment, with both of them holding onto him, casting their interest onto small items, he wants to tear the local countryside apart for contracts, to get them gifts, to see them smile and have it all be because of him. He wonders if this is how Jaskier feels all the time.

The market is large, and they browse at their leisure, Geralt happy to tag along behind his lovers, a quiet observer, but neither of them seems to forget he is there, beckoning him over, holding something up to show him, sometimes taking his hand or arm. The brush of a kiss here and there, Jaskier tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, Yennefer folding over his collar with gentle hands - they’re caring for him.

In a way, it’s funny, like the flock guarding the wolf in their midst, but then, they see so much more colour and emotion than he can, so he supposes they’re more qualified to lead the way. Still, as he watches them, he can’t help but wonder when he’s going to wake up from the dream where he got luckier than could ever be real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm sorry there's no sex, but I was in a lot of pain typing, and had to call it quits here!


	7. only breathe because I let you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CN: Yen will be discussing her disabled body, and her infertility, and in both cases will be using ableist language, because that's what she knows. This is drawn from my own feelings about my disabled and infertile body in my darkest thoughts, and is not supposed to represent the way we should be thinking about disability.
> 
> Title from 'The Wolf in Your Darkest Room' by Matthew Mayfield.

Geralt can feel the tension start to build as the day comes to an end. Yennefer’s wearing a small pewter brooch shaped like a hare that Jaskier pinned to her dress, and the way she smiled at him was enthralling. Jaskier, on the other hand, now owns a new perfume, which even Geralt has to admit suits him. They bought each other presents, they keep smiling at each other, and he’s done… nothing. He has no extra coin to give, because it isn’t as if he’s been working these past weeks of winter, living off Jaskier’s coin, watching the bard perform, running off to Yennefer whenever the feelings get too much for him. Even if he had the coin, there are necessities he needs before he could think to spend on frivolous presents for his lovers. But he wants to.

He idles at a few stalls, looking at saddles - Roach’s is nearly too worn to be much use - and a new whetstone, and every time he turns, there they are, both flanking him. Jaskier’s mouth is set in a broad smile, and even Yen’s mouth is turned up at the corners, although she still looks like it’s because she knows a secret that no one else does. And yet he can’t shake the feeling that they’re laughing at him, that it’s all been a joke, that they’ll get back to the inn and Jaskier will hand over his personal effects before shutting him out of the room, leaving him to listen to Yennefer laugh in delight as he touches her. He’s the reason everything is complicated, after all.

So he doesn’t know why he leans into Yen as she takes his hand, or feels soothed and at peace when Jaskier bumps their shoulders together. He doesn’t know why he still craves them, even when he knows that they deserve better. If he were a stronger man, he’d be able to walk away from them, be able to tell them this and make moves to remove himself from this little coupling. But he’s weak, and foolish, and he’s never had hope before in his life, but he has it now. It’s a tiny, sparkling thing, like the tilt of Yen’s head or the way Jaskier’s hands talk when he’s feeling passionate. There are so many strange and beautiful creatures he has helped towards extinction on The Continent, but he somehow knows that if he crushes his hope, here and now, it will be the worst destruction he has ever wrought.

When they reach the inn, Geralt mumbles something about checking on his horse, and heads off to see Roach. He debates not going back up to the room, once he’s given her some oats, water, and petted her a little, getting an impatient snort for his troubles. He doesn’t want to go back and find them together, in the room, touching each other and not him. He’s never been so certain of his death as if he walks back to the inn and finds the two of them entwined, without him. Roach swings her head, hitting him squarely in the side, and he manages a small smile at her obvious admonishment before securely bolting her in, stroking her blaze, and heading back to the inn, trepidation marking his every step.

When he steps inside, eyes rapidly adjusting from the light outside of a sun not quite ready to set, he scans the dim room for the two of them, but he knew, even before he opened the door, that they wouldn’t be there, waiting for him. He goes to the bar anyway, orders an ale, and then asks the barman where the bard took the woman he came in with. The jut of a thumb towards the stairs makes the ale swirl in his gut, and he doesn’t finish the pint, waving it away. Another expense for Jaskier’s tab that Geralt just keeps adding to, as if he’s got the right. As if he doesn’t owe the bard.

The stairs seem so much longer and darker than they were just a few scant hours ago, when all three of them came down them. His back is itching with the feel of healing, and he rolls his shoulders in an attempt to shake off the sensation, a distraction, anything other than thinking about what will await him when he opens the door to Jaskier’s room and sees the two of them not even noticing he isn’t there. He breathes slowly in through his nose, scenting the surrounding area, but can only smell Yen’s self-satisfaction and Jaskier’s new perfume. So he pushes open the door, ready, or so he thinks, for anything.

He expected to find them fucking, maybe, or perhaps in the bath, entwined, completely unaware of his entrance to the room, but it’s worse than that, in a way that punches at his chest, because Yen’s got her head on Jaskier’s shoulder as he plays with her hair, and it’s so sweet that Geralt wishes he could bear to look away. They don’t turn at the sound of the door, their backs to him, Jaskier’s hand a slow, steady motion in Yennefer’s hair. Geralt nearly turns tail and walks out, never mind that his saddlebags and half his clothes are in the room, he’s always said he needs nothing - but then he remembers the way Jaskier looks at him when he uses his words, the way he sounds so proud when he calls Geralt good. He clears his throat quietly, and Jaskier turns his head, smiling.

“Took your time,” he says, but his voice is fond, and Geralt wants to wear that fondness like a cloak, to keep him warm when they finally realise that he’s not worth it. “Get lost on the way back?”

It’s a question, and Jaskier’s rule says Geralt has to answer questions, and be honest about it.

“In my own head, maybe,” he murmurs, not knowing what else to call it. “Did you want more time?”

“Don’t be foolish,” Yennefer says, and the affection in her voice almost burns Geralt, it’s that unexpected. He’s used to her harshness, sharp and bitter like wormwood and rue, and he does not know what to do with this honeyed sweetness. “We were waiting for you.”

“Waiting?” Geralt asks, before he toes off his boots, trying to look less like he’s going to run.

“Can’t talk about what we want if one of us isn’t here, can we?” Jaskier says, with a small shrug. “Now come and sit with us so we can talk about what went wrong last night.”

Geralt freezes. He knows what went wrong the night before; he dared to stop someone from hurting him, dared to pretend he deserves better than pain, dared to act as if he’s not just something to be used. But Jaskier reads everything in his expression.

“You can sit at our feet if it helps,” the bard says, and Geralt feels the tension loosen, walking around the bed to settle on the floor at Jaskier’s feet, and resting his head on his bard’s knee. “That’s it, sweetheart, does that feel better? Feel safer at our feet?”

Geralt startles a little at the hand in his hair, especially when he realises it’s Yennefer’s hand, but she doesn’t pull, just strokes gently over his scalp in a way that makes him want to purr. He nuzzles Jaskier’s knee instead of giving a verbal answer, then waits for the punishment.

“Words, darling,” Jaskier says, reproachfully, and that’s enough, just the fact he’s not being good anymore makes Geralt want to fix that. “You know I always want to hear your words.”

“Better,” Geralt manages. “Like I’m good.”

“You are good,” Jaskier croons, and Yen’s hand in his hair begins to move again. “So, so good for us, but I need you alert and with your words right now, because we’re going to be talking about serious things. Do you think you can keep your words if you stay on the floor?” 

It’s a serious question, and Geralt gives it due thought.

“I can try?” he says, and sounds so unsure, even to his own ears, that he ducks his head. He hates how he can feel comfortable in a nest of ghouls, but the second someone wants him to talk about feelings, he shuts down. It’s part and parcel of what makes him a Witcher, but on occasions such as this, he wishes whoever came up with the mutations had considered that Witchers still have to go out into the world and mingle with people. There’s no point making a monster if you still need it to act like a man.

“Alright,” Jaskier soothes, one hand on his shoulder, burning in like a brand, and Geralt wants those hands all over him - but if he wants that, he has to be good first, and talk about what happened last night. “I’ll move you if it gets too much.”

Yennefer is the first to speak, probably because Jaskier is looking at her with a raised eyebrow, but she doesn’t stop petting Geralt’s hair, which is a mercy.

“He normally comes to me for pain,” she says, “which you know, because we’ve talked about it.”

Geralt opens one eye - when did he close them? - and listens to this, because he’s interested just how much these two have been conspiring against him.

“But Geralt doesn’t know that,” Jaskier says, leaning down to brush a kiss over Geralt’s hair that makes him rumble with a low purr. “So, once that first night when you went to Yen was done with, I went and found her, to let her know that I was the one putting you back together afterwards.”

“That day you were entertaining,” Geralt realises, with a start. “That was Yen.”

“Correct,” Yennefer says, with a small smile, and he wants to glow from the praise she’s giving him. “We needed to talk about your safety, because I’m not very good at impulse control - “

“You don’t say,” Geralt says, drily, smirking at the look she gives him.

“Yes, thank you - I’m not good at impulse control,” she says, rolling her eyes at him, “and you’re terrible at treating yourself with any decency, so I needed Jaskier to be there as a back up, in case I got carried away and you didn’t tell me to stop.”

“But you did, sweetheart,” Jaskier says, nuzzling him again, and Geralt could die happy from the way the bard’s voice thrills him. “You were so good, and you used your word, even though you didn’t know if Yen knew if, and I’m so proud of you for that.”

Geralt watches a meaningful look pass between the bard and sorceress, and wonders what’s so difficult to talk about.

“I - “ Yen starts, and then swallows the words. Geralt shifts his head to her knee, trying to lend comfort, and the misery that twists her smile is painful to him. “It’s easier for me to be cruel, because I have so little experience with kindness. You weren’t wrong, that time you said I must have had some ailment before Aretuza.”

Geralt remembers those words, said without care or thought, without ever dreaming Yennefer could have real feelings, and looks away, guiltily. He knows the story, of course, Triss having told him long ago, but it’s different, hearing it from Yennefer’s own mouth. She’s never told him, maybe doesn’t know that he’s aware.

“I was born broken,” she says, flatly, and Geralt hears Jaskier make a noise, and looks up to see him shaking his head. “Alright, fine, I felt like I was born broken because no one ever gave me a chance to prove that I wasn’t. I wasn’t good enough to sleep in the house, so I slept with the pigs. I wasn’t good enough to even pour their slop, because my spine was twisted. Every moment was agony, physical and mental, and then in Aretuza, I got to choose the shape I would have instead. And this is what I chose.”

Geralt has no idea what to say. He’s met those from Aretuza before, seen what that place can do to women, giving them the idea that if they can only be beautiful and powerful, all the injustices of the world will melt away. How he’s envied them, that their changes make them attractive, while his only mark him out as something to fear or to scorn.

“And it’s very pleasing,” Jaskier says, quietly. “And yet.”

“I gave up my chance at babes with this change, let them tear my womb from me and remake my flesh as if that would somehow change the fact that I was still broken on the inside,” Yennefer gets out from between gritted teeth. “So I’ve been cruel, because I was never shown anything but cruelty. And I didn’t understand that while you seek pain, you want controlled pain, you want care after. I don’t know how to be kind, Geralt. It’s not what you or I were made for.”

She’s right at that, neither Witchers nor sorceresses made for pleasantries, no thought given to how they might feel, only their usefulness to others. Which is maybe why he accepts whatever he is given, while she demands the entire world stand up and take notice of her. He has no words for what he’s feeling, so simply turns his head so he can press a kiss to her knee, and watches her try to smile.

“But I want to teach you,” Jaskier says, softly, as if, should he speak too loudly, Yennefer might break into pieces. “The two of you will need each other once I’m gone, unless by some miracle I’m granted the immortality to stay with you, so I have to teach you both to be kind to each other. And to yourselves.”

“Immortality isn’t a gift,” Geralt says, but still, deep down, he can admit that Jaskier’s immortality would be a gift for him, if not for the bard. He takes a deep breath. “I like pain, but I don’t think I like being treated like nothing. That was what led to… well.”

He feels Jaskier’s fingers lifting his chin, and melts into the given kiss like snow hitting a lake. When softer hands take over holding his chin, he lets himself be moved, gently pried from Jaskier’s mouth and given Yen’s instead, moved between them like he belongs, and that’s everything Geralt’s always known he can’t have.

“You’re doing so well with your words,” Jaskier murmurs, as Yennefer breaks the kiss and Geralt pulls back, panting, pupils blown. “So, we’ve all got our watchwords, and we know what we don’t want - did you want to try going down for us, sweetheart? For me and Yen to keep you as ours and fill you with pleasure?”

“Yes,” Geralt manages, voice hoarse with want, with the very idea that these two bright, beautiful creatures want to help him feel good. “Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a lot of this with a massive white cat in my lap. Come say hi on twitter @neffectualism!


	8. you've got a sweet heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Sweetheart by Kerry Courtney. 
> 
> Apologies for the long wait - my arm's doing a lot better now, and I also found a plot hole while re-reading and let the anxiety over that tell me I wasn't good enough to write something long!

Geralt stands to undress, and is surprised when Yennefer’s hands take over the job, slow and soft and achingly different from how she’s been with him before. Jaskier, behind her, busies himself with making the bed, before his hands start to go to his doublet, removing it. Geralt brings his eyes back to Yen.

“Good boy, that’s what I want,” she says, voice painfully gentle. “Keep watching me while I get you naked for us. Keep those pretty golden eyes on me, and we’ll give you everything you need.”

“You don’t need to be soft,” Geralt growls, before he can stop himself. He doesn’t even know why, because he’d been enjoying her touch, and now he braces himself for a blow to the face. Which doesn’t come.

“I want to be, for now,” Yennefer says, voice still sweet and lilting. “And that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To be what we want?”

“Yes,” Geralt says, the words almost ripped out of him and drenched with longing. “Yours.”

He doesn’t let his eyes stray from her again, watching her hands dance oh so carefully over his clothes and skin, teasing and tantalising with every motion. He’s still apprehensive about what she might do, but he can feel her sincerity, even as he can feel himself slip down for her, letting her take control as his hands drop slowly to his sides.

“So good for us,” Yen says, and Geralt loves that praise, loves being told he’s done well, so he lets himself move with her hands, helping but never getting in her way, and nuzzles into her hands when they get near his face. “That’s it, you’re doing just what we want.”

Geralt feels soft and good and swaddled in clouds when he feels Jaskier’s hands on his shoulders, just this side of too tight, and he purrs into the sensation of sharp nails digging in.

“Now, you were a good boy and used your word,” Jaskier says, and Geralt can hear the smirk in his voice, knows exactly how that gorgeous mouth will quirk in self-satisfaction. He can smell the bard’s arousal, but even that feels far off, with how deep he is. “But you were wrong not to tell us that you were having scenes and playing with both of us, weren’t you?”

Geralt tenses a little at that, but not too much, content to let the softness of Yennfer’s hands keep him soothed and sweet, even as Jaskier’s clever mouth bites gently at his throat, making him gasp.

“Yes,” he manages, remembering Jaskier’s rule about using his words. “Yes, I was wrong.”

“So you need a punishment, sweetheart,” Jaskier purrs, and Geralt can feel that fog start to recede, can feel the fear rise up. Jaskier can obviously see it happening, because he kisses along Geralt’s neck and shoulders, soft and careful. “Yen’s going to hold your hands, and I’m going to spank you for the count of five, does that sound like a suitable punishment?”

Five is easy, to be hit with a hand, and Geralt knows he could take ten times that, easily, but Jaskier doesn’t hurt him. Jaskier soothes, Yen hurts, and the confusion makes Geralt feel lost and alone, so he nods, silently, and receives a kiss from Jaskier in reward for giving an answer, even if it doesn’t and shouldn’t count as using words.

“Over my lap, then, good boy,” Jaskier says, softly, settling on the bed and planting his feet firmly. Geralt would be a liar if he said he wasn’t nervous, but he settles across Jaskier’s thighs anyway. He makes a small hum of pleasure as Yennefer settles on the floor in front of him, and takes his hands, just like he was promised, and grounds him a little better.

“You have your word,” Yennefer says, carefully, and presses a kiss to one of his wrists. He’s the only one naked, the other two still fully clothed, and he can feel the silks of Jaskier’s breeches beneath him, so soft but yet strange on his naked thighs. It makes him shift his hips, restless, and then Jaskier’s hand is on the back of his neck, squeezing in a clear admonishment, and Geralt can hear himself whine before he’s really aware it’s him making the noise.

“Now, now,” Jaskier coos, and Geralt can hear the smile in his voice, aches to turn his head and see it, but instead, he’s caught, keeping his eyes on Yennefer, like he was told. “This is a punishment, so you’re not to enjoy it too much, understood?”

“Yes,” Geralt manages, and it sounds so small, so lost, compared to his usual forms of speech. 

“That’s our good boy,” Jaskier murmurs, stroking down his spine, his touch like warm water, a soothing balm for Geralt’s aches. And yet, he’s going to cause them, for once. That makes Geralt stiffen again, preparing himself for the blows. “Such a good boy for us, so good, so easy, so biddable. You want to be ours, don’t you?”

“Yours,” Geralt croaks, closing his eyes because he can’t keep looking at Yennefer, can’t keep seeing her, violet eyes so carefully watching him. He flinches a little at the hand touching his face, but melts when he feels Yen’s mouth on his, letting himself sink into the kiss, even as her hand goes back to holding his.

He feels Jaskier’s hand smooth over the curse of his arse, and Yen draw back, so he takes a deep breath, readying himself for the first hit.

“Count for me,” Jaskier says, voice still so soft, so easy, and Geralt breathes out, squeezes Yennefer’s hands. When Jaskier’s hand comes down, Geralt hears the crack of flesh on flesh before he feels it, blooming heavy and hot along his skin. It feels amazing, good pain, sweet and easy, and he cries out, unbidden, eyes flying open to meet Yennefer’s. She’s not smiling, when she looks at him, but her eyes are dark with hunger and want, which makes him shudder. She looks like she wants to eat him alive. “The number, Geralt.”

He hears the warning in Jaskier’s voice, the promise of more punishment if he doesn’t speak, and a part of him wants to stay silent, take more pain, feel Jaskier’s hands all over him until he’s bruised and begging - but he’s not the one in control here. He’s there to obey.

“One,” he manages, voice hoarse with want, and he realises with a start that his cock is thickening, fattening up as it rubs against Jaskier’s silken breeches, and he shifts his weight instinctively.

“Oh, we like that, do we?” Jaskier asks. It’s a question, and Geralt wants to be good.

“Yes,” he rasps, voice thick with arousal. “Please. More.”

Jaskier laughs softly, a small, delighted sound, warm with affection and familiarity, and Geralt thinks he could spend a hundred years like this, between Jaskier’s hands on his back and Yen’s fingers twined with his.

“Such a good boy for us, isn’t he?” Jaskier asks Yen, and Geralt watches the smile bloom across her face. It’s so beautiful it takes his breath away. 

“So good, so sweet, so eager,” Yennefer agrees, leaning to kiss one of Geralt’s hands, then the other. “We got so very lucky.”

Geralt knows that isn’t true, knows anyone cursed to be wanted by a Witcher is going to face a mountain of hardship, but still, it’s nice to hear the pretty lie. He’s lost in those thoughts when the second blow strike him, and the noise he makes is half-surprise and half deep groan of want. Yen squeezes his hands a little harder, and he whines.

“Two,” he manages, and that’s two, two strikes - how had he ever thought that he could put up with more than five? There’s a difference between this and the way Yen used to use him, this is carefully calculated to make him want, and he’s rolling his hips against Jaskier desperately, trying to chase his pleasure.

“Hold still,” Jaskier says, and it’s obviously an order, even with the hint of fondness among the iron of demanding his obedience. Again, Jaskier’s hands roam the warming flesh of his arse, and Geralt whines once more. His eyes are closed, and he doesn’t know when he shut them, just knows he doesn’t think he could look Yen in the eye like this. As if he can read minds, Jaskier speaks again. “Open those pretty eyes, didn’t Yen say she wanted to see them?”

“Got to please both of us, after all,” Yennefer adds, and Geralt envies her the decades of playacting at court. She, at least, knows how to play a role, even one that is unfamiliar. Geralt, however, has always been nothing but himself. He slowly opens his eyes. “Oh, good boy, that’s perfect.”

Geralt shudders at her words, back arching up even as there’s another spank from Jaskier, and he doesn’t know what he’d call the noise he makes, but manages to make it sound enough like ‘three’ that he isn’t admonished for it.

“Our wolf can howl,” Jaskier says, and Geralt is so very glad that Witchers can’t blush, even as he comes back to himself and feels his mouth open, feels himself panting with want, heart rate almost human-fast with need. “And he’s so beautiful when he howls for us.”

Yen lets go of one of his hands and brings it to cup his face, where he nuzzles into it, slack-jawed and needy, and he can’t bring himself to feel any sort of shame. They’re both here, both touching him, both focused on him, and it’s more than he could ever have hoped. Her fingers thread into his hair and tug, gently, forcing him to keep his eyes on her. It’s… so much, and Geralt doesn’t ever remember feeling this much of anything, let alone of anything good.

“Just for us,” Yennefer says, so softly that Geralt doesn’t know if Jaskier could have heard her. “Not for anyone but us.”

The fourth blow takes Geralt by surprise, and this time even he’d call that noise a howl. He looks desperately at Yennefer, eyes wide as he realises he’s making too much noise for an inn.

“Four - too loud, too loud,” he rasps out, hoping Yennefer will understand what he means. The worry washes away with how he simply exists as a few points of contact; Yen’s hand on his, her hand on his jaw, Jaskier’s hand on his back, and the way his cock is rubbing against the silk of Jaskier’s breeches. Everything else is a numb, tingling feeling, like he’s been underwater for too long, and those burning spots where he’s being touched are the only thing anchoring him to the world.

“No one will hear us,” Yen says, taking a moment to wave a hand languidly at the door. “Don’t worry, I spelled it before you even got up here.”

That’s the last thing Geralt needs to be able to let go of any pretence of control. He won’t be thrown out of the inn, neither Yen nor Jaskier minds sharing him, no matter how greedy he feels, and he’s nothing but the pleasure they can wring from him.

When the last spank hits, Geralt lets himself go, voice and mind and body, his senses giving in and allowing him some rest from constantly waiting for the next attack. Everything goes white, and he can feel nothing but their hands on him, hear nothing but their voices, and knows nothing but endless pleasure, cresting like a wave.


	9. you were scared and you were beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from aeseaes cover of 'Realiti' by Grimes

It’s the feeling of a cool, damp cloth against his thighs that makes Geralt come back to himself. He’d usually snarl upon being woken, but there doesn’t seem to be enough energy for that, enough strength in him to rise up and bat those hands away.

“Grumpy thing, isn’t he?” Yennefer says, and he cracks open an eye to growl at her, even as he hears Jaskier’s laughter.

“As if we’d have him any other way,” the bard says, and Geralt realises he’s still over Jaskier’s lap, still spread out, and he’s spilled on Jaskier’s breeches - surely there will be a punishment for that, too, surely he will be reprimanded for enjoying his punishment. Jaskier must feel him tense, because he strokes a hand down the Witcher’s back, careful to avoid the still-healing marks. “It’s alright, sweetheart, I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to go down so deep for us so early, but we need to check in with you now.”

It takes effort to pull himself out of the well he’s in, the way his limbs are heavy and thick, how he wants to lie still and let them do whatever they want to him, how he’d bite his tongue and silence his word for everything they could give him, because he’s theirs, entirely theirs. But Jaskier asks, and so he must obey, must drag himself from the mire of pleasure and soft quiet, and back into the world.

He sits up slowly, trying to shake off the dizziness that feels like he’s been under Axii, wobbling a little. It’s easy to lean into Jaskier’s hand, to feel Yennefer’s hand on his ankle, to know they have him, and he isn’t alone.

“Wstfgl,” he manages, which isn’t a word, but Jaskier smiles at him anyway, as Yen lets out a peal of laughter like the sound of sunlight on gold. “Mmnf.”

“I appreciate the effort, dear heart,” Jaskier murmurs, helping him sit on the edge of the bed. “But I do need real words. Let’s make it easy, I’ll ask some questions. Are you in pain anywhere? Bad pain?”

“No,” he manages, voice raspy and harsh. “Good sore.”

“Such a good boy for us,” Yennefer says, stroking along his calf, and he hears the little keening noise before he realises he’s the one making it. “But we both know better than to think you’re done from just that.”

“Well, quite,” Jaskier smirks, threads of want shining in his voice. “So, do you want us to make you come again?”

“Yes,” Geralt says, instantly, without even thinking about how greedy it makes him.

“Wonderful, sweetheart,” Jaskier responds, and he smells of lust again now, which makes Geralt shiver with want. “You still want to play with both of us at once? If not, use your word.”

“Yes,” Geralt says again, but that doesn’t feel like enough. “Please, yes, please, I want you, both of you.”

“Trust the bard to get words out of you,” Yennefer says, with a wry smile. “No, no, don’t look like that, Geralt, it wasn’t a complaint. I find I like you loud far more than I’ve ever liked you quiet - and you know I liked you quiet, quite a bit.” She pulls herself from the floor, onto her feet, and with a wave of her hand, the silk of her dress pools at her feet, and she’s been bare beneath it this whole time. Just that knowledge sends a bolt of lust through the pit of Geralt’s stomach.

“Yen, you want to make a start?” Jaskier asks, mouth soft and inviting, and Geralt has to restrain himself from leaning in to capture it. He’s to wait for orders. “While I get a few things together, and get my clothes off?”

Geralt doesn’t know how he got so lucky, how he found himself between two of the most beautiful creatures on the Continent, but he’s determined to be so good that their eyes never stray to another. 

“Lie on your back, Geralt,” Yennefer says, in lieu of answering Jaskier. “Hands above your head, good boy. We’re going to bind you, do you like the sound of that?”

“Fuck,” Geralt manages, breathlessly. “Yes.” He watches as Jaskier hands Yennefer a silken bag, one of their purchases today, and once more, Geralt remembers that they bought each other presents, and nothing for him, and that he had nothing to offer.

“Silk ropes,” Jaskier says, voice husky with want, even as he strips, finding other little bags and adding them to a pile on the bed. “It’s amazing what you can buy for certain bedroom activities these days - we’re going to leave marks all over you, sweetheart, until there could be no doubt that you belong to us, that you’ve been at our sweet mercy for hours.”

Geralt makes a hopeless, strangled noise as the rope is pulled from the bag, black and gleaming in the way that expensive things always do, and Yennefer begins to bind his arms, from the elbow down, in a decorative cross of strands that he can’t see, but can feel.

“Do you want to know what other presents we got you?” she asks, whispering in his ear before nipping at the shell of it and making him growl with the wish his hands were free, so he could touch her skin. “I think that’s a yes.”

Jaskier smiles, and strips the last of his clothing off, before he’s approaching the bed with a thin strip of silk between his fingers.

“We’re going to blindfold you, darling, that sound like something you want? And then we’ve got a lovely plug to fill you up while I take your gorgeous cock and you give Yennefer use of your mouth - all sound good?”

It sounds incredible, but Geralt realises something about the position.

“I won’t - my word. How do I…?” he asks, hesitant, in case the idea was for him to have no way to use it, forcing him to trust them implicitly, but that seems against what they’ve been trying to teach him. 

“Oh, good boy, you want to use your word if you need,” Jaskier purrs, leaning in to kiss Geralt, a ravishment of his mouth, plundering tongue seeking to draw noises from the Witcher, and succeeding in their mission. When he pulls back, he puts something in Geralt’s hand, some sort of inflated bladder that jingles slightly as it’s gripped. “If you want us to pause, either squeeze it hard enough to burst, or drop it so the bells inside ring. Then we’ll make sure your mouth is free, and you can give us your word. Does that help?”

With relief, Geralt nods, his mouth dry with how much he wants this, how much he wants to be theirs, be good, be sweet for them. He so badly wants to deserve them, though he thinks that’s probably impossible. Things like him don’t ever deserve things like them.

“Wonderful,” Yennefer says, voice husky, securing the final knot, binding him to the headboard, and he twists a little, testing them. Nothing he couldn’t break if he needed to - but he knows he isn’t at a point where he could do that. Not yet. “You want to blindfold him, bard?”

“Fuck, yes,” Jaskier hums, kissing Geralt’s forehead before lifting it slightly, to tie the silk around his eyes, blocking Geralt’s ability to see anything. But he can hear, and feel, and smell, and as a Witcher, that’s enough for him. “You’re so gorgeous like this, all decorated for our pleasure.”

With his eyes covered, he can hear the way Jaskier’s mouth curves when he smiles, can smell the lust on both of them, sweeter than it’s ever been before, can feel his cock rise and shudder with every indraw of breath. It’s overwhelming, and he shivers, gooseflesh rising on his skin and causing the delight of their hands on his skin to pause.

“Geralt?” Yennefer asks, tone gentler than he’s ever heard it before, and fuck, he wants more of that, wants to know that he’s the one making her gentle and sweet, and all from being so good. “Are you alright?”

“It’s…” he pauses, trying to think of the right words for what he’s feeling, and fails, “a lot.”

“Too much?” Jaskier asks, carefully, and Geralt pauses to give it thought, knows that they’ll make it less intense if he asks.

“No,” he says, after a moment. “Just a lot.” He doesn’t want them to stop touching him, wants to know what they’ll do with him, how they’ll please him, wants to experience everything with them. He wonders what it would be like to be inside Yen with Jaskier fucking him, or to be beneath them both, have their weight pressing onto him, holding him down. “Not too much.”

“So good for us,” Jaskier praises, stroking his hand down Geralt’s face and pressing a kiss to the blindfold where it covers the bridge of Geralt’s nose. “So, so good. Now Yen’s going to keep your mouth busy while I get you stretched for the plug, remember to drop the ball if you need to speak. And don’t worry, if I ask you questions when your mouth is busy, I don’t expect you to answer.”

Geralt nods, closing his eyes behind the blindfold to better attune his other senses, and feels the warmth and weight of Yennefer settling across his chest. He likes the way she moves when he breathes, how the slightness of her body belies her strength, and so he turns his head slightly to clumsily press a kiss to her thigh, listening to her laughter again, before her hands are in his hair, and he can feel that deep, sweet quiet flood his body again, perfectly at peace in his belonging.


	10. my knees will give out soon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies (again) for the wait!
> 
> Title from Tyler Glenn's "Midnight".

Geralt doesn’t want to float through the prep, wants to feel every second, and maybe there’s a part of him that doesn’t really believe this is happening, so he tries to focus on one of them at a time, so he isn’t overwhelmed by the scents and sounds and touches they’re giving him, so good and giving him everything he needs. He has done nothing to deserve this, to deserve them; he hasn’t been good, has complained at what they’ve wanted to give him, and lied to both of them about seeing the other. And yet, there they are, pressed against him like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be. He knows that can’t be true, but he has no other answer for why they continue to touch him.

Yen’s nails are sharp as she settles on his chest, pressing them into his shoulders with just enough sting to let him feel it, before she’s shifting forwards, putting the weight on her knees either side of his head, and lowering herself until his mouth is pressed into her slick folds, tasting the sweetness of her wetness as he flicks his tongue against her, pride rising in his chest as she digs her nails in a little harder. He’s always enjoyed making his partners happy, treated it as if it were the most important thing, in fact, but this feels different, somehow.

“Fuck, I love your mouth,” Yennefer hisses, and the thrill he feels at the praise is stronger than just the knowledge that he’s bringing her pleasure. This isn’t something he just needs, something he’s withstanding because it quells the beast inside, but something he wants. He wants her, wants to feel her come apart above him, wants to be good for her, hear praise and moans and know he’s done more than what was expected of him. “So sweet for me.”

And so Geralt tilts his chin so he can get his tongue in a little deeper, and lets Yennefer grind down on him, until she’s basically fucking his face, giving him small chances to breathe. Her hands move into his hair, tugging just the right side of too hard, making him moan against her. He’s coated in her wetness from the bridge of his nose to his chin, and then he feels his feet being drawn up, legs gently worked apart. 

“That’s it, doing just what I tell you,” Jaskier praises, stroking his hands along Geralt’s thighs, and his touch feels like it should burn.When Jaskier flicks his tongue over Geralt’s hole, he arches, and he must hit Yen just right, because she shrieks, bucking against his mouth. It’s a feedback loop that Geralt would be happy to have continue forever. “Fuck, you’re so sweet for us, darling, so good.”

The blunt press of a finger into him, slick and easy, makes Geralt groan, and it takes him a moment to realise Yen’s gently tapping at his chest, reaching behind herself, trying to urge him to keep his mouth moving where he’s stopped to wallow in sensation. He tries to concentrate a little more on her, but it’s hard to focus when Jaskier’s opening him up so perfectly and his cock is leaking against his belly.

Yen pulls at his hair a little, still gentler than she has been previously, but hard enough to drag him out of his reverie and back to her touch.

“Be good for me, Geralt, make me come for you, I know how good that mouth is, I know you can do it,” she murmurs, and Geralt’s cock twitches at her words. “If you can make me come before Jaskier gets the plug in you, then after you’re done fucking him, I’ll have you too.”

At that, Geralt does groan, mouth opening on her as he struggles to contain himself. He wants his hands free, wants to touch her thighs, wants to pin her where he wants her and fuck his tongue up into her until he’s soaked in her fluids and his own spit. But with his hands bound, he’s at her mercy, at their mercy, and that thrills him more than any way he could touch them.

“You have the best ideas,” Jaskier groans, adding another finger, making Geralt grunt at the burn, just enough to set every nerve ending on fire. “And while you ride him, I’ll take the plug out and press inside, see if we can’t overwhelm him in every way.”

It feels so strangely good when the weight increases on him, knowing Jaskier must be leaning on him as well, and being completely aware of the limits of his own body, just how much he can take - and that he won’t have to. That they aren’t going to push him to the edge and then over it, that they want him to be happy and enjoy himself. That when he drops fully, they’ll be there afterwards to help him out of the darkness. He never knew he could have something like this, and he’s not going to let it go easily. For as long as they’ll let him cling, he will.

The sound of the two of them kissing, though, touches an edge of unease in him. He knows that they probably wouldn’t work alone, both of them wanting to call the shots too much, unable to compromise, but aside from that small fact, they seem perfect for each other. They’re both attractive, which he objectively isn’t, and they’re just… so much more than he is. So much more pleasing.

“Darling, where did you go?” Jaskier asks, breaking through Geralt’s spiralling thoughts. “You stopped making noises for us, stopped devouring Yen.”

Yennefer herself shifts back, until she’s sitting on his chest, giving him the chance to word out of the situation. Resolutely, Geralt keeps his eyes shut, despite the blindfold covering them anyway.

“You want to stop?” she asks, carefully, keeping her voice light. Geralt shakes his head, keeping his eyes closed even as she gently lifts the blindfold away. “Want us to change the plans?”

“No, please, no,” he manages, and even to his own ears, his voice sounds cracked and broken, like he’s struggling to hold back sobs. “Please, I’ll be good, I’ll - “

He feels Jaskier shifting, until there’s a hand petting his hair.

“Open your eyes for me, darling,” he says, and Geralt finds the courage to do as he’s told, to look at his bard. “That’s it, we’re here, we’ve got you. You don’t have to keep playing if it’s too much, it’s alright.”

“Or if you only want to play with one of us,” Yennefer adds, eyes downcast. Geralt doesn’t know how he keeps making this incredible woman feel like she isn’t enough for him, but the flame of self-loathing burns a little brighter every time. “Is.. is that it?”

“Or do you think we don’t really want to be with you?” Jaskier asks, voice so soft and quiet that it disarms Geralt, and he looks away, then realises too late that this is more admission than anything else. “Oh, sweetheart, no, we’re not going to become something that doesn’t include you, I promise. We love you.”

“We love you so much,” Yen echoes, cupping his face with a hand. “We just want to completely overwhelm you with pleasure and sensation, make you feel as wonderful as you are.”

Geralt shakes his head, unable to take this in, but her hand holds his head steady, and he’s never been good at disobeying her.

“How about we keep the blindfold off, for now?” Jaskier offers, giving him a compromise. “So you can see how we look at you, you can see if we kiss, you can see how much we adore you?”

Geralt can do nothing but nod, accepting their judgement, accepting their kisses, before Jaskier slips back down the bed. Geralt arches as two slick fingers breach him, mouth open, and revels in the smile on Yennefer’s face.

“C’mon, Yen,” he says, gently, with a hint of a smile. “Let me make you come for us.”

Her expression becomes even more like the cat who got the cream, and she bends down to a messy, aggressive kiss that leaves him gasping, before her weight is shifting and she’s hovering above him again, waiting for him to take care of her. He growls and presses his mouth back to her wet core, loving how her nails dig back in, clearly demonstrating that he’s doing a good job.

It’s easy, after that, to let the haze take over, lost between the sweet wetness of Yennefer against his mouth as he spurs her to come twice and the strength of Jaskier’s fingers inside of him. When the plug - cold metal, thick and weighty in a way that satisfies something he didn’t know he needed - presses in, the shift of his body’s ecstasy presses him just so into Yennefer’s cunt again, and she cries out even as he bucks his hips helplessly, trying to get the plug impossibly deeper.

“So good for us,” Jaskier praises, and then there’s the sound of more oil being glugged onto fingers, and the room is full of the pleased gasps of his lovers. Geralt loves hearing them like this, beyond words with pleasure. He can understand their lack of words, their body language, better than he could a speech of their intentions. “So fucking good, fuck, Geralt, almost ready for you, love.”

By the time Jaskier’s weight settles over his hips, Geralt can smell that his own cock is leaking, feel the jolt as Jaskier’s hand encircles him, holding him steady, and begins to slide down, tortuously slowly.

“Mm, doesn’t he feel perfect inside you?” Yennefer asks, and Geralt loves this, loves the praise they’re trading about him. “So big, so thick, just right.”

“So, so good,” Jaskier manages, the gasp in his voice spurring something like pride in Geralt’s heart as he battles to hold his hips still. “And he’s keeping so still for me, so careful, like he thinks he can break me.”

When his arse meets Geralt’s hips, they both groan, echoed a moment later by Yennefer, a feedback loop of pleasure that they just trade between them for a moment, before Jaskier starts to move and Geralt loses focus, barely remembering to suck at Yennefer’s clit as she grinds down on his face, both of them taking their pleasure from him.

It’s so good, the pleasure tinged with the dreamlike quality that submitting fully always gives him, and he finds he’s wriggling against his bonds, trying to get his hands free to touch them, but not wanting to damage the rope. Yennefer must take pity on him, because the ropes unspool from around his arms, and with a growl, he sets his hands on her hips, lifting her a little before pulling her back against him, redoubling his efforts to make her shake and come apart above him again.

“Close, so close,” she pants, and Geralt loves how needy and desperate she sounds.

“Yes, so close,” Jaskier adds, and his movements take on a frantic energy, desperately chasing his pleasure, and when Geralt feels him tighten, arching up with a cry, it’s mere seconds before Yen follows him over. Caught in the net of their orgasm, Geralt lets them pull him over too, the satisfaction of making them come almost more exquisite than his own sense of pleasure.

When he comes back to himself, he’s between the two of them, Yen’s hand drawing lazy patterns on his chest as Jaskier strokes his hair, both of them telling him how well he did, how good he was for them, how proud they are.

For the first time, Geralt doesn’t feel guilty, or lost, or hurt, or like he needed too much from his partners. Fort the first time ever, he feels wholly, utterly content.


	11. where we need to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I didn't quite know how I wanted to wrap this up, but now, on my 5th wedding anniversary, I knew how I wanted things to be. Not perfect, because love never is, but worth fighting to keep. To my own wolf, my taciturn, growly love, who doesn't know how to be nice to themselves - I will help you learn how, every day, every day, forever.
> 
> Title from Side Saddle's 'On the Road in a Storm', and written to the sound of this and the rain outside.

The second round is, somehow, even better than the first. Yennefer rides him with abandon, nails running down his chest just enough to leave red lines but not to cut skin, as Jaskier presses into him. The bard treats him like he’s delicate, and he growls at him to speed up. For his cheek, Jaskier slows his pace, and leaves Geralt gasping, desperate and needy, and Yen lets the rope wrap around his arms again, leaving him unable to reach for her. He whines, the feeling of filling and being filled so overwhelming that he’s coming before he can even vocalise the desire, but Witcher stamina is good for one thing, and so they keep riding him until they find their own peaks. He hadn’t known, truly hadn’t known that it could feel this good, that anything could feel this good, and now that he’s aware of how it feels to have two exquisite lovers, both focused entirely on him, he never wants to be without it. Knowing he’s the one who makes them come, makes them cry out and shake, that he’s what they want - it’s like being set on fire, slowly, from the inside out. He’d burn for an eternity, if they only asked him.

With both of them shuddering for him, their attention firmly on his, Geralt realises that this, more than anything, is what he’s been wanting. He wants their eyes on him, their hands and mouths, their words wrapping him in so much praise that he cannot escape it. He hasn’t had a chance to let his spirits sink, because when the two of them have their attention on him, there is nothing left of him to fall, every part of him is clawing towards the sky in praise. He feels like the way rain feels after a string of too-hot days, like something is broken by bringing relief along with it. They coax him over the edge again, and it’s like all the anxiety and stress of the past few weeks sloughs off him, like he’s shedding his skin.

He wakes slowly, not knowing when he fell asleep, to an empty bed and the sound of rain on poorly-insulated thatch covering any heartbeats that might be in the room. Opening his eyes takes effort, and a moment more to focus in the grey haze of the room. It’s that nebulous time between daybreak and true sunrise, and the rain is heavy enough that he suspects even a human could smell the damp petrichor it brings forth, even from the frozen winter ground. Sitting up, he can feel where he was restrained, where nails dug into him, where he was opened up for Jaskier’s cock, and it would all feel just right if he knew where his lovers were.

The door opens quietly, and Geralt tenses for a fight before he catches Jaskier’s scent, and that of bacon, and watches his bard tiptoe in, as a roll of thunder makes him jump.

“Where did you go?” Geralt asks, careful not to sound like he’s demanding they stay, or making them do something they don’t want.

“Fucking hell, Geralt,” Jaskier breathes, nearly dropping the plate he’s carrying, but managing to save the bacon and bread and eggs from meeting the floor. “We need to get you a collar with a bell on it.”

Geralt has never been more glad that his lovers can’t smell arousal as he feels himself stir at those words, before his stomach rumbles and that hunger overtakes the other. 

“Breakfast?” he asks, shifting himself into a better position for eating in bed, crumbs be damned.

“Mm?” Jaskier muses, clearly distracted with the way the sheet pools in Geralt’s lap. “Oh, yes, breakfast! We should’ve brought you up properly, really, but you were pretty tired, and we figured you wouldn’t wake up for a little while, but…”

“Sleeping beauty all awake?” Yen asks, from the doorway, letting herself in and locking the door the behind her with a swish of her wrist, before waving her other hand and a bath setting itself up, in a tub far larger than the one Jaskier had managed to find, which makes Geralt suspect that it doesn’t belong to the inn at all. “Good, those sheets would need to be made into dusters if they were left any longer.”

The stress that had been making his back tense starts to burn away as they both make it clear that they weren’t trying to sneak out in the night. Neither of them, and that they seem to be working together, and Geralt should know better than to imagine he can have things like this, but he’s starting to hope this might be the one time that he’s wrong.

“They’re not your sheets, what do you care?” Jaskier asks Yen, all indignation, and Geralt watches the two of them bicker gently, both smirking and all traces of mean-spirited barbs gone. “Anyway, let the poor man eat first, then you can scrub him to within an inch of his life, if that’s your kinky little desire.”

“Unfair,” Geralt says placidly, and finds himself in the spotlight as two gazes snap to him. “I don’t call your urge to wash me kinky.”

“You,” Jaskier says, booping him on the nose with an accusatory finger, even as he settles a plate and cutlery into Geralt’s lap, “are usually covered in bits of monster when I wash you. And besides, of course it’s kinky, why else did you think I was so invested in rubbing camomile all over your arse?”

“Perhaps I thought you were just being thorough,” Geralt says drily, and is rewarded with a beam and a kiss from his bard. “Thank you for breakfast.”

He watches in veiled amusement as Jaskier mock-swoons at the thanks, and Yen rolls her eyes at his antics, before both of them go over to the bath and start to gently squabble over what scent to put in the bath. The sound to the rain undercuts everything, like it’s washing away the past, and Geralt lets himself listen to it as he eats, tuning out everything but the way the rain pitter-patters like a pulse, like the heartbeat of an entire world. When the thunder rolls, he feels it like a wave, like he’s been fighting drowners on the coast and lost his footing, and the roar of the surf above him fills his ears.

Through all of it, he can smell contentment, bone-deep and smug as a cat, coming off both of them, and he can smell it on himself, too. He finishes his food, then slips from the bed, stalking towards the tub and making both his lovers shriek as he looms behind them, their momentary fear dissolving into laughter as they realise he’s spooked them.

“I mean it,” Jaskier says, through his giggles. “Collar, bell, you.”

Yen smirks as she watches his body react to that threat - or promise - and raises an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, I think our wolf might like that,” she says, voice sultry and deliberate as her eyes rake over his frame. “Be our eager plaything, collared and kept and owned.”

Geralt doesn’t whimper, no matter what anyone else might think, and hurriedly gets into the tub, groaning at the warmth and how it feels on all his aching muscles.

“Our Geralt?” Jaskier says, mock surprise practically dripping from his words, “liking to be tied down? Whoever would have thought?”

Geralt gets his own back by pulling him into the tub, clothes and all, though Jaskier swiftly stops protesting once Geralt’s hands are under his clothes, removing them, and then keep him anchored to the Witcher’s lap. In fact, Yen looks a little put out that she wasn’t dragged in as well, though she quickly disrobes - and really, does she ever wear anything under those dresses? - and slips in with them both, sliding closer until she’s nestled against his side.

“You’re both terrible,” he says, softly, unable to hide the fondness in his voice. “Clearly I’ll have to keep both of you, if only to keep the rest of the general populace safe.”

The twin jabs in his ribs from their elbows just make his smile a little broader, pulling them both a little closer to his body.

“After winter…” Yennefer broaches, and she’s clearly so nervous about what she’s going to say that even Jaskier doesn’t interrupt her. “I will have… duties. Elsewhere. Will I still….”

She doesn’t say the words, and Geralt’s still puzzling it out when Jaskier makes a wounded-sounding noise and grabs for her hand.

“Of course we’ll still want you here,” he says, and Geralt quickly understands, nodding along. “Anytime you want to join us, just show up.”

“Preferably not while I’m in danger of being distracted and thus murdered by something,” Geralt says, but he kisses the top of Yennefer’s head. “You’re always welcome. Especially if you bring that magic tent.” He takes the scowl she sends his way with good grace.

“You’ll let me track you?” she asks, carefully, and Geralt raises an eyebrow.

“I’m surprised you haven’t been already,” he says, and watches understanding dawn in her eyes. That it’s never been about him not wanting her by his side, and everything to do with her being afraid to give up freedom. “I won’t clip your wings, Yen.”

She surges up to kiss him, possibly to hide the tears brimming in her eyes, and Geralt pretends he doesn’t know that they’re falling, just as Jaskier curls an arm around her.

Not every problem can be solved overnight, and Geralt isn’t naive enough in the ways of love to think that he won’t make another mistake, that he won’t push them away, that everything will be perfect from here on out. But settled in a hot bath, with the scent of cold rain and his lovers’ contentment on the air, Geralt’s at least willing to admit that this is happier than he ever knew he could be.


End file.
